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Lambda School wants to teach nursing

economist.com

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Re: Lambda School wants to teach nursing

#41

Post by austenallred »

d4mi3n wrote: post #38
notbob wrote: post #16

I am skeptical that these income sharing agreements are so great. Especially in software. Lambda School has a 9 month program that takes a 17% cut of your salary for the first 24 months of employment with a cap at $30,000. Which many students in software will hit, especially in high COL areas. It's worth noting that this is more expensive than many/most universities, which charge less than $30,000 per year (9 months…

I have a friend going through a boot camp, and the financing was eye opening. They are indeed expensive, but consider: what if an applicant does not have the credit history or collateral to get a student loan? This is a pretty common situation for people looking to pick up a trade skill to get out of the unskilled labor market, or for people looking to transition into a more desirable field of work.

Lambda School doesn’t currently look at credit history or require collateral.

Re: Lambda School wants to teach nursing

#42

Post by austenallred »

lr4444lr wrote: post #40
notbob wrote: post #16

I am skeptical that these income sharing agreements are so great. Especially in software. Lambda School has a 9 month program that takes a 17% cut of your salary for the first 24 months of employment with a cap at $30,000. Which many students in software will hit, especially in high COL areas. It's worth noting that this is more expensive than many/most universities, which charge less than $30,000 per year (9 months…

I don't think it's fair to compare an arrangement at zero up front cost risk to the student to a full up-front cost risk to the student (where the loan also hurts his credit rating) dollar for dollar. Are you also factoring in the NPV? Inflation?

Or... interest?

Re: Lambda School wants to teach nursing

#43

Post by awwstn »

I love Lambda's concept. I think aligning the interests of the school with the interests of the student are a fantastic evolution, and committing to only charge students for payback in the case that they have a positive outcome is great too.

That said, the "only pay us back if you get a good job" commitment seems like lip service as long as the cutoff is $50K (for software dev at least). Lambda school's team is super vocal on Twitter and regularly shares stories of students who walk away making 3-4x what they made previously...if the program genuinely believes it can consistently graduate students who can earn $80-$150K in the market, then it should align its business model to that.

The median salary for a software engineer in the US is $100K. The current Lambda promise is "you only have to pay us back if you earn half the nationwide median salary in the 5 years following our program"...this does not strike me as a very bold commitment to the quality of the program.

To be very clear: I've seen successes of Lambda students and I believe that they have created a model that graduates students who are competitive in this job market. So, I'm not saying that Lambda is bad. On the contrary: I'm saying Lambda is excellent and they should be bolstered by that excellence to take a stance with a less conservative income share agreement.

From their site:

> Instead of paying tuition, students can agree to pay a percentage of their income after they're employed, and only if they're making more than $50k per year.

Re: Lambda School wants to teach nursing

#44

Post by austenallred »

awwstn wrote: post #43

I love Lambda's concept. I think aligning the interests of the school with the interests of the student are a fantastic evolution, and committing to only charge students for payback in the case that they have a positive outcome is great too. That said, the "only pay us back if you get a good job" commitment seems like lip service as long as the cutoff is $50K (for software dev at least). Lambda school's team is super…

Most of our students are in rural areas where $50k is actually really good money (though this is changing). There’s not really an existing legal framework to say “if you make x in this kind of city or y in this kind of city.”

Certainly, in San Francisco, $50k isn’t a win. Luckily our median salary there is well into the six figures.

Lambda School’s income share agreement is also (to my knowledge) the only in the industry that is industry-specific. If you end up as a bartender making $60k we make $0.

Most 3 month schools are 15% for 3 yrs with a $40k min. Lambda School is 9 months, 17% for 2 yrs with a $50k min and a cap.

So our agreement is actually very aggressive as is, and will become more aggressive over time.

Re: Lambda School wants to teach nursing

#45

Post by codingdave »

austenallred wrote: post #26
naveen99 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does lambda school come with a .edu email address for students ?

No, Lambda School is not an accredited school.

Perhaps you should look into getting it? Accreditation does exist for vocational schools, and you'd go a long ways towards alleviating the concerns of potential students if you pursued it:

http://www.accsc.org/Accreditation/Standards-of-Accreditatio...

Re: Lambda School wants to teach nursing

#46

Post by soneca »

notbob wrote: post #16

I am skeptical that these income sharing agreements are so great. Especially in software. Lambda School has a 9 month program that takes a 17% cut of your salary for the first 24 months of employment with a cap at $30,000. Which many students in software will hit, especially in high COL areas. It's worth noting that this is more expensive than many/most universities, which charge less than $30,000 per year (9 months…

I am a self-taught junior web developer after a career change at 37yo.

I always have the impression that this perception that Lambda's model is not good always come from people in more comfortable positions that are not even close to the reality of who actually applies for Lambda.

I am from Brazil and did the career change two years ago, so there wasn't actually the option to do Lambda School for me. But it would be a no-brainer for me at the time and I am pretty sure I would be much better in my career now if I had done it (in knowledge and earnings).

4 years of college? Not an option for me. USD15k upfront for a regular bootcamp? Not an option for me. Take a loan with the risk of having to pay with a big chance of not getting a good job soon enough? Too risky for me (and in Brazil the high interest rates make it a ridiculous thought, but even with US rates it is too risky).

My path was self-taught through freeCodeCamp.org (awesome project!!!) and reading tutorials and documentation. I was able to get a frontend jr position, but I can tell that I was lacking a lot of knowledge/skills when I started (git, tests, agile process, design patterns, clean code, to name a few).

Now I am moving to LA and I am failing every remote technical interview because I lack the specific skills needed for being hired in the US.

Lambda School 9 no-upfront full-time months with close mentorship and teamwork, plus the alignment to help get me a job seems like a "too good to be true" option for me; not a "tricking naive laypeople who don't know better into paying their high price" that all "skeptical" commenters I have ever read in HN seems to think

Re: Lambda School wants to teach nursing

#47

Post by austenallred »

soneca wrote: post #46
notbob wrote: post #16

I am skeptical that these income sharing agreements are so great. Especially in software. Lambda School has a 9 month program that takes a 17% cut of your salary for the first 24 months of employment with a cap at $30,000. Which many students in software will hit, especially in high COL areas. It's worth noting that this is more expensive than many/most universities, which charge less than $30,000 per year (9 months…

I am a self-taught junior web developer after a career change at 37yo. I always have the impression that this perception that Lambda's model is not good always come from people in more comfortable positions that are not even close to the reality of who actually applies for Lambda. I am from Brazil and did the career change two years ago, so there wasn't actually the option to do Lambda School for me. But it would be…

Beautifully put, thank you.

Re: Lambda School wants to teach nursing

#48

Post by austenallred »

codingdave wrote: post #45
austenallred wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Lambda School is not an accredited school.

Perhaps you should look into getting it? Accreditation does exist for vocational schools, and you'd go a long ways towards alleviating the concerns of potential students if you pursued it: http://www.accsc.org/Accreditation/Standards-of-Accreditatio...

Have looked at it. It provides more negatives than pluses. Waiting months or years for someone to review every curriculum change would completely kill us.

Re: Lambda School wants to teach nursing

#49

Post by hhs »

phren0logy wrote: post #36
jseliger wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the big problems are 1. existing credentialing bodies and 2. the AMA, which wants to restrict entry into the profession and chiefly does so through the residency system. The physician shortage is a bug to the larger society but a feature to existing doctors, who wish to charge patients more and raise their own salaries. But see also https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/upshot/a-doctor-shortage-…

Hi, I'm a doc. Just wanted to add a few corrections: The AMA (American Medical Association) has nothing to do with residency slots. Residency slots are funded by CMS. I am in a shortage speciality, and we have been pushing for more residency slots for a long time. While there are probably some physicians who are self-interested enough to oppose this, I think it's unfair to characterize them as even a significant mino…

Thanks for adding your views, this is useful. On the AAMC site, there's also a piece called "GME Funding and Its Role in Addressing the Physician Shortage" that talks about the point you rightly make about pushing for more residency slots. It's here: https://news.aamc.org/for-the-media/article/gme-funding-doct....

On the residency point, it adds:

"As part of the multi-pronged approach to alleviating the doctor shortage we also need additional federal support to produce about 3,750 more doctors a year by lifting the cap on federally funded residency training positions. Teaching hospitals are operating 10,000 residency positions without Medicare support, but cuts to Medicare and other clinical reimbursements jeopardize the ability of teaching hospitals to cross-subsidize with clinical revenue these positions.

The AAMC strongly supports bipartisan GME legislation introduced in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2019 (H.R. 1763, S. 348), which takes an important step towards alleviating the physician shortage by gradually providing 15,000 Medicare-supported GME residency positions over a five-year period. However, legislation alone will not relieve the doctor shortage.

In addition, the AAMC supports non-GME incentives and programs, including Conrad 30, the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), and Title VII/VIII, which are used to recruit a diverse workforce and encourage physicians to practice in shortage specialties and underserved communities."

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