Anyone attendind ITT Tech Nursing program?

pmabraham, BSN, RN · Sep 11, 2014

If you search allnurses.com you will find ITT Tech has a very bad reputation; you might want to consider looking at local community colleges and other non profit, accredited schools.

Thank you.

brittany_07 · Sep 11, 2014

Thank you for your help!

TC3200 · Sep 11, 2014

Disadvantages:

Reputation.
Newcomer in the field, and lots of new programs end up failing and losing accreditation. ITT is a newcomer to the nursing field. Colleges & universities have been teaching nursing a lot longer.
Coursework that doesn't transfer to college degree programs, unless you complete ITT, pass the NCLEX, become an RN, and then you are eligible for RN to BSN bridge degree programs.
Cost. Very expensive program considering you get (I believe) an associate degree out of it.

If you get partway into ITT's nursing and decide you don't like it, or fail out, you will be stuck with noplace to transfer to except another ITT Tech campus. If you fail out or transfer out of a college, community college, or university degree program, or even an established diploma school RN program. there are more schools that will accept your transfer credits.

Small schools, newcomers, new RN programs are all risky. Mountain State University in Beckley WV is one that started up a RN degree program and later lost its accreditation and a lot of students were left with student loans and no way to complete their nursing program except to almost start over at a different school. Look at trends in NCLEX-RN pass rates for any school Are they improving, declining, or staying the same, or consistently high? That can clue you to a struggling school.

Jcgirl · Sep 11, 2014

Hi! I attend Breckinridge, and yes, I enjoy it immensely. My professors are great, and have all had many years experience in the field. The coursework is a lot, but worth it. As others have mentioned, it is costly. I was able to get a scholorship that covered half, and a few other classes transfered. With that being said, if you decide to go, stick with it. There's tons of tutoring offered on campus. The class scheduling is easy, I go 2-3 days a week. As of right now my campus has a high NCLEX pass rate and I'm pretty sure all have been hired. If you have any other questions, shoot me a PM :)

brittany_07 · Sep 11, 2014

Thank you TC3200 that was very informative! I will keep this in mind for my search.

SopranoKris, MSN, RN, NP · Sep 12, 2014

I almost got rooked in to enrolling at ITT because I didn't want to wait & have to do pre-reqs. I'm glad I did my research first! I actually visited the campus and I got a high pressured sales pitch, which raised a lot of red flags with me. After researching further, I found so many negative things about the school. Biggest are:

1. I want to pursue a graduate level degree after the BSN. None of their credits transfer to accredited graduate nursing programs at the schools I wish to attend.

2. The cost for the BSN was 3 times higher than both of the Big 10 universities in our state. Ridiculously high-priced for the quality of education.

3. Many students who attended this campus complained that when they were done with the program, they were told they'd have to complete additional "modules" before they could receive their degrees. If they didn't pay for the modules (additional cost not originally disclosed to them), the school withheld their degrees and they couldn't sit for the NCLEX. To me, that's a very shady practice.

4. Most of the hospitals around here refuse to hire grads from ITT. Your resume is immediately filed in the "circular bin" in the HR dept. Not worth the time & massive expense with little hope of landing a good job.

5. ITT counts ANY job found after completion as a "job placement" in their stats. This means, if you got a job at Burger King because you can't get hired at a hospital, they still count it as job placement. Very misleading.

6. Their NCLEX pass rates are falsely elevated because they prevent many of their students from being able to sit for the NCLEX.

So, while the lure of "no waiting lists!" and "no pre-requisites!" may sound appealing at first, is it really worth it in the long run? Especially when you can get your degree for a fraction of the cost at a community college or university? It only took me a year to get in to my program. I'll be graduating in May and then going on to bridge RN-to-BSN. I saved so much $$ by enrolling for an ADN at a CC and then bridge to BSN this summer. I won't have massive debt at the end :)

Please be very careful when considering for-profit schools!