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Lambda School (YC S17) now pays eligible students $2k/month

lambdaschool.com

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Re: Lambda School (YC S17) now pays eligible students $2k/month

#41

Post by incompatible »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #36
incompatible wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose the contract obliges them to look for / accept a job after graduating? I mean, I'd be happy to take money to study for a while, but I wouldn't look for a job afterwards.

I hate to break it to you, but I don't think many people can afford to live without a paying job, and if they can, I doubt they're willing to exchange their time for $2k a month. I don't think people not looking for a job is a problem you need to heavily consider. Especially if there's a selection process for admission -- which the founder says there is.

I suppose you can optimise by only taking candidates who can't survive without a job. There are certainly people who can, e.g., people who have partners with well-paying jobs, people from wealthy families, or people with investments. Some of them may still find an extra 2k/month attractive.

Edit: I my case, I'd find an extra 2k/month attractive, and there are always new things to learn about software.

Re: Lambda School (YC S17) now pays eligible students $2k/month

#42

Post by austenallred »

jamestimmins wrote: post #39
austenallred wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s rare that that happens. That particular student is now leading a team of 40, so he was well suited, but we tell most students to be at “try to go senior quickly” level (with regard to ability not necessarily title).

Impressive. As someone a bit later in their career (4 years in), I'm a bit jealous of this opportunity. I'd be very curious in some kind of midlevel->senior program like this. Something like Bradfield but more widely available geographically. The content is more difficult at that level, but the salaries are substantially higher as well.

Coming soon.

Re: Lambda School (YC S17) now pays eligible students $2k/month

#44

Post by vikp »

austenallred wrote: post #37
vikp wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very interesting, and I'm curious about the nature of the risk that you're taking on. It seems like risk would only become a factor for Lambda School if you're taking 10% of pre-tax income from graduates for the 5 chronological years immediately after they graduate (regardless of employment status). If you're instead taking 10% of pre-tax income from graduates for the next 5 years in which they're working (no…

> then the risk to Lambda School is practically zero If only! We only get paid if a student is making $50k/yr or more and the agreement is time-bound (10 yrs). A student may teach those levels of salary without our involvement, but when our possible downside is $18k + the cost of training and our potential upside is somewhere between $0 and $50k any level of default or non-hiring destroys returns immediately.

If you're only getting repaid when someone is employed and making over 50k, which seems to be the case from your website ("Upon completion of the program, students will pay 10% of their [pre-tax] salary for a five year period once they're making at least $50,000 per year"), then the "repayment floor" for Lambda school is 25k (with probably a close-to-50k "repayment average").

I'm assuming that if someone loses a job, and later regains one, then payments pause while they're unemployed, but don't count for "repayment time", due to an article I read -- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/business/dealbook/educati....

How I think it works is that once someone graduates, they have 5 years of "repayment time debt". Once they get a job that pays >50k, the "repayment time debt" starts ticking down. If they lose their job, or start making Even with a 10-year cap, this seems very close to traditional debt. It seems likely that software engineers will make more than 50k for 5 out of 10 years.

Re: Lambda School (YC S17) now pays eligible students $2k/month

#46

Post by austenallred »

vikp wrote: post #44
austenallred wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then the risk to Lambda School is practically zero If only! We only get paid if a student is making $50k/yr or more and the agreement is time-bound (10 yrs). A student may teach those levels of salary without our involvement, but when our possible downside is $18k + the cost of training and our potential upside is somewhere between $0 and $50k any level of default or non-hiring destroys returns immediately.

If you're only getting repaid when someone is employed and making over 50k, which seems to be the case from your website ("Upon completion of the program, students will pay 10% of their [pre-tax] salary for a five year period once they're making at least $50,000 per year"), then the "repayment floor" for Lambda school is 25k (with probably a close-to-50k "repayment average"). I'm assuming that if someone loses a job,…

The repayment floor is $0.

You’re assuming that everyone will quickly start making over $50k, which isn’t the case. Given that we outlay ~$30k in stipends and training and the cost of that capital is non trivial there’s no way a loan term would come close to this.

Re: Lambda School (YC S17) now pays eligible students $2k/month

#47

Post by pl0x »

@austenallred What's the catch? Lambda School has always struck me as scam like with a very vocal CEO and over promises.

What happens when regulators start cracking down on these practices and what makes you think Lambda will be successful when most bootcamps have failed or been acquired.

Re: Lambda School (YC S17) now pays eligible students $2k/month

#48

Post by [deleted] »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #36
incompatible wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose the contract obliges them to look for / accept a job after graduating? I mean, I'd be happy to take money to study for a while, but I wouldn't look for a job afterwards.

I hate to break it to you, but I don't think many people can afford to live without a paying job, and if they can, I doubt they're willing to exchange their time for $2k a month. I don't think people not looking for a job is a problem you need to heavily consider. Especially if there's a selection process for admission -- which the founder says there is.

[deleted]

Re: Lambda School (YC S17) now pays eligible students $2k/month

#49

Post by austenallred »

pl0x wrote: post #47

@austenallred What's the catch? Lambda School has always struck me as scam like with a very vocal CEO and over promises. What happens when regulators start cracking down on these practices and what makes you think Lambda will be successful when most bootcamps have failed or been acquired.

The catch is that you have to pay us back if it works.

What makes Lambda School different than other code schools is a few things:

1. Our incentives are entirely aligned with the student. We don’t get paid unless they get hired so juicing revenue numbers with weak students just isn’t interesting, in fact it’s fatal.

2. We put an insane amount of time, money, effort and energy into instructional design. Lambda School is nine months long, and includes a computer science curriculum most bootcamp grads need (and lack).

Regulators love us - they’re sick of for profit schools promising a lot and delivering little except debt. We’re the antidote to that. That’s why there’s so much hype.

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