TCC Working To Help Displaced ITT Students
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FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) – Tarrant Community College hosted an "Education Fair" offering people left in the lurch by the sudden closing of ITT Technical a chance to salvage educations and careers.
"I finished my degree and four days later ITT shut down," said Kendrick Banks as he held his associate's degree. He doesn't know if he'll need to retake courses so he can begin work on a bachelor's degree. "That's one thing I came here to see," he said.
"On the sixth of September we all got emails saying you are no longer allowed to use your GI Bill here," said Ryan Morris.
That left Morris trying to transfer course funding. "I was scrambling," he said.
TCC is giving former ITT students a one-stop shop to salvage their education. "Let's see, I took solid state, I took micro processing," Banks said as he sat down with an advisor.
They assembled a room full of experts to look at transcripts and finances. "We have our advisor table over here," said career advisor Allyson Oudin as she pointed at people sitting at tables around the large room. "We have our career and technical education right next to the advisor tables. We have veteran's affairs."
Morris sat at that table working out his GI Bill financing. "Everybody here has basically said how can we help you," Morris said. "What do you need from us and this is what we need from you. It's been very straight forward."
TCC is trying to find ways to give course credit even if ITT's credits don't transfer. "Maybe we can do some credit by exam," Oudin said. "Maybe have him take like a final exam to see if maybe we can get them credit that way. If they have the knowledge to pass those exams hopefully there is some way we can work with them so that not all the work that they've done is lost."
"It's all on me now," Morris said with a smile. "I have to give them the paperwork and they'll enroll me."
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