I think you have to be careful about looking at the diverse student body as "giving them an opportunity". For example, predatory for-profit universities specifically target low-income minority populations not to serve them but because they make for easy prey[1]. I'm not saying Lambda or any particular bootcamp is in this category, just that having a diverse student body isn't a feature unless you know for a fact that you're helping 100% of the students.[2]
Education has a couple of unique attributes that makes it difficult to assess:
1. the value cannot be perceived until much later after the service is rendered
2. alternatives are mutually exclusive; eg, people usually just attend one university or coding bootcamp, not all of them (or even two of them)
This is in contrast to, say, a restaurant where diners can immediately determine if they like the food and can compare it with competitors (because they dine at all the restaurants).
Those two attributes make it very easy to lead with hype and marketing and vulnerable people are particularly susceptible to it. imo it's not appropriate to deploy the standard startup playbook in edu, especially if you find yourself attracting vulnerable students.
Ok, now combine that with ISAs, which has some positive qualities but are not as incentive aligning as marketed. And then if you sell the ISA in bundles, then it becomes even less incentive aligning. Well, I guess it's now aligning with investors and loan brokers. But it's certainly not aligning more with student outcomes.
It all makes for a very delicate situation where you have vulnerable students biting on the ISA bait.
I know it seems like I'm just complaining but I've been thinking about these problems for a long time and I come with solutions. Or, particularly, a solution: imo the best thing an edu institution can do is allow students to leave easily.
Why do we never think of restaurants as predatory? The idea is ludicrous to even consider. There are of course terrible restaurants but we can just not dine there again and eat elsewhere. There are lots of restaurants around.
And here's the issue: there are also lots of edu institutions around but every single one of them deploy the marketing->entrapment playbook.[3]
How does marketing work when you have a bad school? Because of the time-lapse between value received and service rendered. The ISA is easily abused in this environment because it's both the marketing and the trap.
Anyway, I'm just riffing here... btw, huge fan of your books and work! Despite what I wrote above, I knew Lambda was making an honest attempt at their curriculum when they hired you.
[1] https://failstatemovie.com/
[2] imo, edu institutions need to be judged on how they treat their most vulnerable students, unlike startups who are judged on their best wins (https://twitter.com/cglee/status/1781129096250179640)
[3] https://medium.com/launch-school/educational-entrapment-f5cc0472051e