When Corinthian Colleges collapsed last year, the for-profit chain's students suddenly found their classroom doors locked. Students at ITT Technical Institute now face similar worries as it looks like the end of the road for the for-profit institution and its 130 campuses.

Last week, after years of investigations, the U.S. Department of Education banned ITT Tech from enrolling new students who receive federal funding while also increasing financial oversight with several measures. This week ITT posted a notice on its website stating it was no longer enrolling new students.

For-profit experts and analysts expect this could all mean the institution will go bankrupt and shut down. The company also is facing several unresolved state and federal lawsuits. The turbulence has left many students questioning their options.

U.S. Undersecretary of Education Ted Mitchell said last week that ITT's approximately 45,000 students could choose to continue at ITT, look to transfer their credits to another institution, pause their education or, if the company closes before they finish, look to discharge their loans.

Moving On

Transferring credits to another institution may be difficult for ITT's students. The company said on its website that credits earned at the institution's campuses are unlikely to transfer.

Other for-profit institutions might be students' most readily available transfer options.

“A lot of schools that could be potential transfer points for ITT would be ACICS accredited schools,” said Trace Urdan, a for-profit education analyst with Credit Suisse, referring to ITT's accreditor, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools.

Yet transferring to another ACICS accredited institution may be just as much of a problem for students since the agency is regarded as "damaged," he said. ACICS is facing its own federal scrutiny, and recently delayed a hearing on ITT until December.

"This has become an explicit strategy for some schools," Urdan said. "There will be for-profit schools that will step up, none with the same brand appeal as ITT, but there will be options."

DeVry University, for instance, offers some two-year degree programs and may make a gesture to ITT students, he said. (DeVry, which has a relatively strong brand, is not as established as ITT in offering two-year, technical degrees.)

Community colleges and four-year institutions with regional accreditation may be less receptive to ITT students because they may not accept the credits, since regional forms of accreditation are more highly regarded, Urdan said, adding that those institutions may look at an ITT transcript negatively.

That's worrisome to some advocates who feel students may be moving from one bad situation to another. Pauline Abernathy, executive vice president of the Institute for College Access and Success, said the now-closed Corinthian was enrolling thousands of students who had been attending institutions that had closed.

But for ITT students, community colleges may be better positioned today to receive them than they were in years past.

"The types of programs ITT offers are those types offered by community colleges and community colleges have seen significant declines in enrollment in the last three years, so the capacity is in all likelihood there," Abernathy said. "With community colleges the credits aren't likely to transfer, but that's where one important option for students is to take the discharge and restart at a community college where programs will be much more cheaper and of higher quality. And most ITT's are in urban areas where there's likely to be a community college nearby."

In Indiana, there are six ITT Tech campuses with approximately 3,000 students.