[GRLUG] Is ITT Tech a Good School?

[Michael Passer]

Jumping in on the tuition piece, it's possible to get a rough cut of 
tuition and fees from the National Center for Education Statistics site. 
All schools receiving federal Title IV aid are required to report on 
costs annually, and will soon be required (as a result of the 2008 
Higher Education Opportunity Act which amended the Higher Education Act 
of 1965) to make a net price calculator on their web sites.

ITT Wyoming's data are at 
http://nces.ed.gov/globallocator/col_info_popup.asp?ID=170417 and 
Davenport's are at 
http://nces.ed.gov/globallocator/col_info_popup.asp?ID=169479. The NCES 
College Navigator, http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/ , enables 
searching for schools using myriad criteria.

I am admittedly biased having come from a public school background (and 
just beginning the M.S. in Information Assurance program at Davenport), 
but I feel students are better served by public (like GRCC) and private 
non-profit institutions (such as Davenport) than by for-profit 
proprietary institutions like ITT. Costs at publics and non-profits are 
typically lower and the lack of a profit motive makes it less likely 
that students are sold a bill of goods, as it were, about job prospects 
for a given curriculum.

While new to the area, I have seen evidence of Linux in GRCC's course 
offerings--and public two year colleges are a less expensive place to 
get started on a baccalaureate degree. I'm not sure what community 
college(s) serve Kalamazoo, though. The suggestions of taking advantage 
of Linux's open source nature to play with it yourself are great, too -- 
today's distributions make it dead easy to create a dual boot system and 
to try Linux as your "daily driver" which in and of itself will 
facilitate learning as you solve day-to-day issues that arise from that use.

I hope some of this helps with your decision and I wish you the best of 
luck in your studies!

Michael Passer

On 2/22/2011 6:58 AM, Jonathon Klobucar wrote:
>
> On Feb 22, 2011, at 8:53 AM, Michael Mol wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 1:43 PM, mooselikebriard 
>> <moosebriard at gmail.com <mailto:moosebriard at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> It appears that Davenport is about $11,500/year (in seat, 12 cr
>>> hr/semester.)  ITT does not advertise their tuition rates, but the 
>>> best of
>>> what I can find is around $44,000 for two years, or twice as much 
>>> per year
>>> Seems odd to avoid publishing tuition rates which is part of my 
>>> apprehension
>>> surrounding ITT.  Thanks for the Davenport idea. They never occurred 
>>> to me
>>> and they have a campus here in Kzoo where I live.
>>>
>>> I observe most institutions have one or two Unix/Linux classes in 
>>> their BS
>>> programs.  Where can a person get schooled in those disciplines?  I am
>>> relatively new to the Linux world and am finding myself in some 
>>> amount of
>>> awe at it's capability.  I use it frequently at my job to salvage 
>>> Windows
>>> machines which to me says a lot (about Linux).  I have 20 years of 
>>> teaching
>>> myself Windows......a speedier route to learn Linux would be great.
>>
>> There are a lot of certification programs out there which compress
>> semester-long courses into one-week or three-day hands-on runs.
>
>
>> linux+ is a place to start if you really really want a cert.
>
>> At this stage, if you're considering spending the coin to go back to
>> school for a couple years, consider spending that same coin on a round
>> of certs and workshops. In the computer field, cert programs are
>> almost certainly going to be more up-to-speed on the industry than
>> college courses. (I've got an acquaintance who's taking a class
>> involving Fedora who has been having difficulty because the version of
>> Fedora they're using came out after their textbook)
>>
>> Also, the best way to learn to do anything right is to eat your own
>> dogfood the way the cat learned to swim*. Back up your Windows
>> install, wipe your system, install Linux and go to town learning how
>> to use it.
>>
>> Finally, there are a lot of good general knowledge books available on
>> just about any subject you want to pick up.
>>
>> Or take the slightly less insane route and wean yourself more slowly. :)
>>
>> * Don't you just _love_ mixed metaphors?
>>
>> -- 
>> :wq
>>
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