Degrees In Debt
from the watch-out-who-you-give-your-money-to dept
I always see TV commercials for local IT training courses, and sometimes I wonder about the schools that offer them. The people who take the classes, however, are clearly trying to better their lives, and are often taking out substantial loans in order to attend these programs in hopes of finding better jobs. So, what happens when one of the schools many were attending suddenly shuts down without any warning? A bunch of people who invested their life savings to take the class or who took out large loans to pay for the classes may be out of luck. They don’t get their certifications, and they don’t seem to be getting any sort of refund. People are scrambling to figure out what their options are. It sounds like some of the financial firms that made the loans are looking to help the students finish their coursework elsewhere, but one points out that it was the students’ responsibility to pick a reliable school.
Comments on “Degrees In Debt”
Degree mills
I’ve seen the effect that these places have on actual people. Several years ago two of my friends decided to go to the local “school of commerce”.
They were like used car salesmen (“What will it take to put you in this class today?”) They had a large staff to do the paperwork for student loans and grants, but a mysterious lack of competent faculty.
It was basically a scam, one of my friends entered their ‘computer programming’ track. For Basic I the prerequisite was Typing II. Like, WTF?
They never ‘graduated’ or whatever, they were basically disgusted right out of the program. They still have the debts though.
No Subject Given
For $10 a month you cah get access to 5 tech books at Safari.Oreilly.com. 5 books should be more than enough to become pretty good at any chosen language, be it Java, Perl, C# or C++, or database, be it Oracle, SQL Server, etc.
If you’re looking for MCSE certification, 5 books might not be enough to cover all exams, so consider spending $15 for 10 books.
Even, if you spend three months just doing the study, total maximum should be around $45, hardly an amount requiring a loan or financing.