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No IT Education:  For-Profit and Community Colleges, Other Training



As mentioned in No IT Education: Certifications, for-profit and community colleges often offer certification preparation IT courses. These are better than just passing the single certification test any way you can but are still insufficient for IT jobs, particularly with regards to IT security, which requires real understanding. I know from experience; see CCNA Courses (Four) from Cisco and UAF CTC in my Credentials.

For-profit and community colleges seized a business opportunity in IT education; see IT Hiring: IT Competents Demand Greater Than Supply. Good universities — see The Most Important IT Credential: An IT Education — inherently couldn't produce enough IT graduates to meet the demand of IT incompetent government, business, and the media, since it's much more like educating a doctor or lawyer than a plumber. For-profit and community colleges have to train quickly and cheaply to be profitable and, like for a doctor or a lawyer, IT competency can't be achieved that way.

Teachers at for-profit and community colleges are usually not qualified; see The Most Important IT Credential: An IT Education. Anyone qualified to teach IT can make a lot more money actually doing IT — "those who can, do, those who can't, teach". This is often gotten away with because qualified teachers are unnecessary with the mentioned certification preparation IT courses, particularly Cisco's, since everything (e.g. lectures) needed for learning is provided by the certification company. For example, even before IT incompetent Accenture Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Nicole Dean got her fake IT education (see ahead), her only college, she was a network instructor (see What Is IT? Networking) at Pikes Peak Community College (see IT Incompetent Fed IT Company Accenture and CISO Nicole Dean Ransomwared, National Security In Danger).

Particularly regarding for-profit colleges, all this assumes that they are even trying to educate and are not just student loan scams, especially those targeting veterans and the G.I. Bill.

ITT Technical Institute — nothing to do with ITT the telecom company, although that association was probably fraudulently intended — was a notorious for-profit college that was finally shut down by the federal government for being a student loan scam, providing worthless educations, to employers who were even a little knowledgeable, and worthless degrees, to those few who could afford to pay the exorbitant tuition long enough to get one. ITT Tech had the largest student loan default rate; when the U.S. Department of Education finally, after years, stopped allowing federally guaranteed student loans to go to ITT Tech in Aug 2016, it closed in Sep 2016. Incredibly, ITT Tech is the only college of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Chief Information Officer (CIO) John Edwards.

Colorado Technical University — nothing officially to do with the State of Colorado, although that association was probably fraudulently intended — is also a notorious for-profit college providing worthless educations, to employers who are even a little knowledgeable, and worthless degrees, to those few who can afford to pay the exorbitant tuition long enough to get one. CTU targets veterans and gets most of its money from the G.I. Bill. CTU was about to suffer the same deserved fate as ITT Tech, but was protected by a federal official who used to (still does?) work for CTU: Diane Jones is Under Secretary in the U.S. Department of Education, but before that she was Senior Vice President of Career Education Corporation, which owns CTU. Incredibly, CTU is the only college of the mentioned Accenture CISO Nicole Dean.

The University of Phoenix — nothing officially to do with the City of Phoenix Arizona, although that association was probably fraudulently intended — is also a notorious for-profit college providing worthless educations, to employers who are even a little knowledgeable, and worthless degrees, to those few who can afford to pay the exorbitant tuition long enough to get one. U Phoenix is like ITT Tech and CTU combined. U Phoenix was about to suffer the same deserved fate as ITT Tech but was also protected by officials in the U.S. Department of Education. Incredibly, U Phoenix is the only college of Nuclear Regulatory Commission CIO David Nelson, as well as being the only IT education of NASA Glenn Research Center CIO Sean Gallagher.

Things have become so bad the distinction between for-profit and non-profit colleges, both community and 4-year colleges, isn't clear anymore. For example, Southern New Hampshire University — nothing officially to do with the State of New Hampshire — bought parts of ITT Tech when ITT Tech was forced to close, and SNHU adopted aggressive marketing strategies, including targeting veterans, just like those of ITT Tech, CTU, and U Phoenix.

Finally, there is the quickest cheapest IT training, several-days-at-most "bootcamps", seminars, etc., which are completely incapable of producing IT competency; for example, those of SANS.

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