I have read all the previous comments and opinions form the others about U.T.I. as a business for profit and from a moral standpoint. The company’s motto is people, purpose and profit; they should change it to profit, profit, and more profit. As a former employee being an instructor for almost ten years, I completely agree. From the outside looking in, it undoubtedly looks very impressive, but on the inside it’s a whole other story. The average age’s that make up the student body is anywhere from eighteen to twenty five years old, there are some older students, but it’s a smaller percentage. Not all, but most of the students have a very poor attitude are disrespectful and have the attitude of “you owe me”, because I’m paying forty plus thousand, so I should be able to do what ever I want.
Management at the Rancho campus is like a revolving door, I had seen four campus presidents and the education managers are like a private cigar club. They have no spine when it comes to student discipline now, and will not back up the instructors because of the thought of loosing a student adding to the low campus population/enrollment problem. In my department I was disgusted with the hammered run down equipment and training aids. They were beyond repair and were not even suitable to be sold at a swap meet. Many instructors were forced and had their employment threatened if they did not work double shifts that would tally a fourteen hour day for weeks or months. Many had to get written medical reasons from their doctors that would hold them to an eight hour day, but management questioned that also. The company also for years was breaking the state of California labor law for meal breaks, they were sued and the company had to back pay many instructors that totaled in the millions, and still they didn’t learn.
I used to take great pride in teaching, and gave the students more than they paid for, but again the majority didn’t care, they slept, played on their phone, disappeared for lengthy amounts of time, and when they failed, management would blame me. That was a tool for management to use against the instructors as pass/fail rates for any merit increases. U.T.I is supposed to be an adult education school, but what I saw; it’s nothing more than a daycare facility.
It’s a big sham, take the money, herd them through, and don’t make it too hard to pass. But that comes at a big price, U.T.I.’s reputation in the automotive industry is very poor, time and time again I have had shop owners and management at dealerships tell me they won’t hire anymore U.T.I. graduates. Because they are arrogant, disrespectful and don’t know anything. UTI has done the acronym, Untrained Total Idiots because of the poor product they release into the automotive work industry.
I was let go without even given a reason as to why after being an instructor for almost ten years. At the Rancho campus they just recently fired the campus president Sean Carlson, he was undoubtedly the worst CP they ever had, he had no clue, or any background in a position like that or any automotive experience. There is a woman that holds the position of director of education by the name of Migdalia Vazquez-Valle that is a royal BITCH!, she has the nickname of the “Hatchet lady”, because of the bloodshed of employee terminations from her. Company moral is in the shitter, and everyone’s tired of walking on eggshells, wondering whose next. Another thing I had also noticed over the years was that no one ever wanted to hear the truth, there are many problems within, but nothing ever seemed to change, nor do I see it changing in the future.