Alright, there's alot of stories flying around, so I want to attempt to set the record straight. Feel free to reply, but I'm not getting into any further discussions. This will be the only time I ever post on this website.
I was an employee of ComputerTraining. Edu (CTE) until the true day of closure: Dec 28. I was a Technical Trainer/Instructor. I am witholding the location.
Tuition:
Yes, the company had issues when the tuition was $28k... They weren't getting enrollments purely because Sallie Mae (SM) wasn't approving loans for that amount. For about a month, the tuition kept dropping and dropping until it hit an all-time low of $10k SM loan and $3.5k in-house loan. Students started enrolling like hotcakes, but it wan't enough to sustain the company. Tuition went back up to $15k, enrollments dropped again (thanks SM). As SM slowly started approving more $15k loans, CTE tried to increase to $18k... There were hardly any enrollments. The company couldn't survive, so it closed.
Company status:
Quite honestly, the company didn't exist as of Dec 28. Yes, on Dec 28, everyone was told that the entire company was closed, and it was. Everyone from Admissions, Career Services, IT, accounting... EVERYONE was let go, even the Training Department.
BUT, the Training Department was not about to easily give up and let students rot. The COO (name witheld) who is also the National Director of Training tried desperately for two days to get the bank to open up an account with money in it that was solely to be used to pay the trainers enough money to finish any classes in session. The bank's final decision was to DENY any money to the remaming staff (ONLY the COO, Regional Training Managers, and Trainers... 22 people). Since ALL ACCOUNTS were seized and there is NO COMPANY to refund students, there's no way students can get a refund from ANYONE.
The COO then made the FINAL decision to give up on Jan 30th.
Student notification:
Yeah, the notification email wasn't very detailed, but what do you expect when someone is writing it after learning the bank doesn't care about the students that are hung out to dry? Quite frankly, the students should be glad they got any email at all instead of arriving on their next day of class with closed and locked doors.
Recourse
Well, what can students do? Like the email says, call your state's DoE. They might assist you in transfering you to another school to finish the course. CTE did that a few years back whan a school closed down.
Unfortunately, like in the last section, there's no company to sue or get a refund from. It's been dissolved and there's no employees anymore. The bank owns all the assets.
Dedication
I will say that there were very good people in the company. The entire Training Department was truly dedicated to student success. I spent countless hours away from my family to help my students pass tests and succeed. The Training Department was strictly instructed to never give out answers to the exam. I never did and the instructors I met personally never did, either. That doesn't mean there were bad eggs in the dozen, though.
Carreer Services worked extremely hard to get students jobs, even if they were very low on the pay scale. The trick the students needed to figure out is to work in the bad job for 3-6 months, then go for a better one. Keep doing that for a few years, and you'll be surprised at where you could be.
Admissions was a good department too, but there were some bad areas. Now, we all know they're just a sales team so they would tell potential students anything to get them in. You need to separate the truth from the half-truths. My admissions department was exemplary. They tried to get strong candidates to enroll and make sure that the quality of student was high. Yes, I've heard about alot of other centers not caring who they enroll. It just depends on your location and the scruples of the admissions people.
I will say that the main issue was with the top echelon of the company. The downfall of the company was mainly because of a select few people. One became greedy, another had no clue how to run a nation-wide company (previously managing a Staples doesn't make you a great Company President), and another was just a mouthpiece. Also, there was a large amount of bloat in the company. There was one person that handled this, and one person that handled that... If I were in charge, the company would've been streamlined a long time ago.
Salaries/bonus
I choose not to talk about salaries, but I will say that yes, there were bonuses depending on the situation, and sometimes, those bonuses were insanely high (~$25k for one month of enrollments during a special bonus promotion).
Conclusion
In closing, honestly, the company went south when it stopped focusing on training and cared only about sales. That happened long before the recent problems, though. I blame recent problems on mismanagement. And that's exactly why alot of companies close.
To all students left out in the cold: We're sorry. We wish we could finish training you at least, but the bank said no. We had no choice but to give up and close. Training tried... We failed. At least we didn't just give up like the Company President.
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