State considers ways to help ITT Technical Institute students

OLYMPIA – Even though ITT Technical Institute was under federal investigation for about two years, Washington could not refuse financial aid to students because it was still accredited, state officials told a legislative panel Monday.

Once the federal government closed off its financial aid, however, Washington followed suit within a week to deny state aid. ITT closed less than a week later, Maddy Thompson of the Washington Student Achievement Council told the Senate Higher Education Committee.

That affected 662 students, about half on the Seattle campus and the rest split between Spokane and Everett. The state’s two-year colleges scrambled to find slots for many of them, Nancy Dick of the state Board for Community and Technical Colleges, said.

But former ITT students face a dilemma, Thompson said. They can have their federal student loans discharged, but only if they don’t try to transfer any credits to another institution from the time before ITT closed .

The Student Achievement Council is working on a detailed report that will have a case study on ITT Technical and make some recommendations to tighten state standards and increase authority for state regulators on similar institutions.

Committee Chairwoman Barbara Bailey, R-Oak Harbor, said the panel will explore how the state can help protect students against similar problems with other for-profit institutions in the 2017 session.