Image: Wikimedia

ITT Technical Institute might be closing down for good.

Today, we received a tip from someone whose wife works for ITT. They said this morning “she and everyone else on staff—including the school director—got a mysterious direct deposit to their bank accounts for their full normal pay.”




It’s an off-week from normal payday, so this struck the couple as a little bit odd. But that’s not the only reason. The tipster also said, “There was also an additional amount above her normal pay which we suspect is her PTO pay out.”

“ITT Tech hands out portable hard drives to the students, for them to use for their homework and take to the computer lab,” the individual said. “Today, the administration has actually given them to the office workers—like student advisors and financial aid—so they could take home personal documents.”


The tip comes following a string of events that that appear to have crippled the for-profit college. Earlier this week, we reported ITT Tech stopped enrolling students at all of its campuses. The decision came after the US Department of Education handed down a series of sanctions against the company, the most damning of which prevented it from admitting students who rely on federal aid to pay for tuition.

ITT Tech has been widely criticized for accepting billions of dollars in governments grants and loans while failing to provide adequate job training for its students. ITT Tech received an estimated $580 million in federal money (aka your taxpayer dollars) just last year, according to the Department of Education. The company has been criticized because it leaves many students saddled with huge debts and no technical skills. A recent report from The Atlantic revealed “students pursuing bachelor’s and associate’s degrees at for-profit colleges saw their earnings drop, compared to before they started the program.”

We’ve reached out to ITT Technical Institute for more information and will update when we ear back.

Have you heard anything or know anything about what’s going on at ITT Tech today? Hit us up at tips@gizmodo.com or michael.nunez@gizmodo.com.


Update (12:45 ET): An ITT Tech spokesperson sent us the following statement:

We don’t comment on rumors. Please see out last public SEC Form 8-K filing dated September 1 available at www.ittesi.com for the most recent company announcement.