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CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred

consumerfinance.gov

141–150 of 384 posts

Re: CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred

#141

Are there any legit income-sharing schools of this type, tech or otherwise? Done fairly, it sounds like an interesting alternative to upfront tuition. On the surface it doesn't seem like a bad model, but of course it could be twisted to evil ends. From the article: > The loans carry substantial risk, as a single missed payment triggers a default and the remainder of the $30,000 “cap” becomes due immediately. > Studen…

The math ends up wildly unfavorable unless you are EXTREMELY confident in your teaching/transformation abilities. If you look good on paper before the school then you don't need it and won't be motivated to share your income. So the applicant pool reduces itself to those who on-paper don't have great chances. So you need to cause a really big delta in the ability of those people to make good money in the industry for…

Not necessarily, fresher or graduate trainee programs are this effectively.

Large companies especially conglomerates do this by hiring freshers and investing in their learning and benefit by paying a bit lesser than the market over the years .

Apprenticeship has also been successful economically at even a scale of one master/sole proprietor for centuries.

The key is to derive value while they learn, not split the learning and earning parts completely

Re: CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred

#142

> Allred tweeted that the school achieved a 100 percent job-placement rate in one of its cohorts, and later acknowledged in a private message that the sample size was just one student. A master of deception with statistics!

Isn’t this the case with a lot of these science studies? Keep tweaking the stats and inputs to achieve the funders’ agenda..

This wasn't a science study.

Re: CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am high level member of a volunteer based org that does online workshops in the tech space, and does dozens of workshops in dozens of countries every year. I fail to understand how you can mess up basic things like having a predecided curriculum, good teachers, a fixed schedule, or providing quality outside class support. We do all of this on a shoestring budget. The stories I have heard about Lambda/BloomTech seem…

This is kind of true about all of Tech. Much of the crowd here isn’t very smart. They simply happened to be at the right place at the right time, ie a time where “software was eating the world” and also the iPhone/Android took over. Finally, the success of the actual smart people in Tech (Google, Apple, Amazon, FB) who are largely pre-iPhone companies, meant that there was a lot of venture money flowing around, when…

I wouldn’t call most of those Amazon, FB, YouTube etc, people the actual smart people either. They’re mostly just lucky. What made Facebook or YouTube successful over any other competitor? Just luck that their design turned out to be the one people like more?

They mistakenly think their success is due to how skilled or smart they are they think they’re hot shit and their thoughts are gold. But most of them are just like Elon Musk: average intelligence people who got lucky enough to climb to the top of the pile.

The same is true for most software people. We think we’re super smart because we have logical thinking and understand a complicated thing that most people don’t, but then you can always get a good laugh reading the HN crowd try to talk smart on other subjects like physics / quantum mechanics.

Re: CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred

#144

Full link to consumer financial protection board announcement: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-takes...

Shoulda posted that if you knew there was a link

You're not replying to the OP.

Re: CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is kind of true about all of Tech. Much of the crowd here isn’t very smart. They simply happened to be at the right place at the right time, ie a time where “software was eating the world” and also the iPhone/Android took over. Finally, the success of the actual smart people in Tech (Google, Apple, Amazon, FB) who are largely pre-iPhone companies, meant that there was a lot of venture money flowing around, when…

I wouldn’t call most of those Amazon, FB, YouTube etc, people the actual smart people either. They’re mostly just lucky. What made Facebook or YouTube successful over any other competitor? Just luck that their design turned out to be the one people like more? They mistakenly think their success is due to how skilled or smart they are they think they’re hot shit and their thoughts are gold. But most of them are just l…

A ton of skill, talent, adaptability, and mountains of hard work are still prerequisites for "getting lucky" in that way though. Just because luck plays a big role doesn't make it the only factor.

Re: CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred

#146
Vincent Woo in 2020: "Lambda has claimed a 86% student placement rate for years. The real number is probably about 50%." [1]

From the announcement: "BloomTech and Allred lured prospective enrollees with inflated promises of job-placement rates as high as 86 percent, when the company’s internal metrics showed placement rates closer to 50 percent and in some cases as low as 30 percent."

Bravo Vincent!

[1] https://twitter.com/fulligin/status/1230152732809392133

[2] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/lambda-schools-job-p...

Re: CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred

#147
post #138

Paul Graham, 2020: "Lambda School will teach you programming faster than most colleges. And it not only works well remotely, but was designed to from the start." [1] Paul Graham, 2022: "Of 1277 students who graduated from Lambda School in 2020 and sought jobs, 950 got them, for a placement rate of 74.8%. (Lambda's weirdly dedicated haters will be happy to hear that these numbers were audited by an accounting firm.)"…

Having something audited by an accounting firm doesn’t make me trust the numbers much more. It’s well known that many accounting firms will give you whatever result you want as long as you pay enough

Re: CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred

#148

Full link to consumer financial protection board announcement: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-takes...

Shoulda posted that if you knew there was a link

That is the same link as the original post.

Re: CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred

#149

[flagged]

In my experience, colleges (at least those that are not-for-profit) don’t actively try to convince you to attend their campus. The expectation or pressure to attend generally comes from their family, friends, and school community.

If a reputable college really wants a student to attend, their financial aid office will generally find a way to lower your costs. Or else they will deny your application, or at best load you up with ugly Parent PLUS loans.

Re: CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred

#150
post #138

Paul Graham, 2020: "Lambda School will teach you programming faster than most colleges. And it not only works well remotely, but was designed to from the start." [1] Paul Graham, 2022: "Of 1277 students who graduated from Lambda School in 2020 and sought jobs, 950 got them, for a placement rate of 74.8%. (Lambda's weirdly dedicated haters will be happy to hear that these numbers were audited by an accounting firm.)"…

I’m sure the CFPB is taking action based on haters….
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