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Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

dfpi.ca.gov

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Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#121

Post by pseudalopex »

tw04 wrote: post #116
lacker wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important, I just mean that the law isn't obvious here, so we shouldn't jump from "Lambda made a false statement about the California law" to "Lambda is maliciously trying to mislead students".

How is the law not obvious? There are a handful of things that are exempt from bankruptcy, "income sharing" isn't one of those things. Going through the list of exempted items, I can't find a single one where I go "oh, yes that sort of applies". http://www.californiabankruptcy.info/exemptions.html

That lists property someone can keep. Did you mean this page?[1]

[1] http://www.californiabankruptcy.info/nondischarge.html

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#122

Post by ghufran_syed »

narwally wrote: post #66
marcinzm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about being attractive, it's about ex-students not declaring bankruptcy because they think it won't remove their lambda school loans. Thus lambda school keeps getting money from them instead of getting nothing after they decide to declare bankruptcy. That clause was, in my eyes, clearly designed to discourage students from exercising their ability to clear debts via bankruptcy.

Yep, it's about "Human Capital: The Last Unoptimized Asset Class" <- the title of an actual internal memo they wrote.

what’s wrong with that? is it better that people can’t develop their human capital, or is it better if people have a variety of ways to finance education to develop their human capital? The status quo is government student loans to finance education, which are generally NOT dischargeable in bankruptcy, AND must still be paid even if if you didn’t graduate, or get a good job afterwards? Isn’t the income-share agreement at least “less bad”? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on how better to address the problem? If the government was involved, I personally think the best way would be a graduate tax of x%

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#123

Post by [deleted] »

nrmitchi wrote: post #72
marcinzm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about being attractive, it's about ex-students not declaring bankruptcy because they think it won't remove their lambda school loans. Thus lambda school keeps getting money from them instead of getting nothing after they decide to declare bankruptcy. That clause was, in my eyes, clearly designed to discourage students from exercising their ability to clear debts via bankruptcy.

I've seen this point made elsewhere too, but I'm not sure I understand it. The ISAs are, as far as I know, capped at 30k, and only apply if you're making 50k/yr. I can't imagine a situation where someone's decision of whether or not to declare bankrupcy comes down to the 30k-max ISA; either it's the majority of your debt, and you're making >50k/yr, or it's a small amount relative to your other debt, in which case you…

[deleted]

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#124

Post by dang »

jamiequint wrote: post #45
pradn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your bizarre cheeriness in the face of "Agreeing to End Deceptive Educational Financing Practices" is offputting, especially when coupled with the way college financing has led to generational deadweight, anxiety, and hopelessness.

Your inane judginess is offputting, especially when coupled with how Lambda School is providing attractive alternative options the expensive colleges you're whining about.

Having read your comments in the thread I get where you are coming from, but can you please not do it like this? It doesn't help. It just gives people more reason to reject the point of view you're trying to defend.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#125

Post by dang »

lupire wrote: post #55
jamiequint wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your inane judginess is offputting, especially when coupled with how Lambda School is providing attractive alternative options the expensive colleges you're whining about.

I'm surprised that non-anonymous people, who rely on their salesmanship for income, are comfortable publicly embarrassing themselves like this.

Please don't take threads further into flamewar (edit: or cross into personal attack).

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#126

Post by rahimnathwani »

From what I read, it seems that:

1. The DFPI has existed since 2013 (when it was formed by the merger of two other agencies). It used to be called the DBO. It was renamed to DBO in 2020, but it is not new.

2. The California Consumer Financial Protection Law (CCFPL) is a recent law that gives the DFPI new powers and responsibilities.

3. The introduction of CCFPL did not change the accuracy or inaccuracy of the 'bankruptcy dischargeability provision language'. The CCFPL just made it the DFPI's job to stop any inaccuracies.

Is that correct?

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#127

Post by bpodgursky »

tw04 wrote: post #116
lacker wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important, I just mean that the law isn't obvious here, so we shouldn't jump from "Lambda made a false statement about the California law" to "Lambda is maliciously trying to mislead students".

How is the law not obvious? There are a handful of things that are exempt from bankruptcy, "income sharing" isn't one of those things. Going through the list of exempted items, I can't find a single one where I go "oh, yes that sort of applies". http://www.californiabankruptcy.info/exemptions.html

Well, student loans _are_ one of those things.

ISAs seem a lot closer to "student loans" than, like, a new boat. I don't think this is totally unreasonable.

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#128

Post by [deleted] »

minimaxir wrote: post #68
jamiequint wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally people who build interesting things don't enjoy shitting on other people's attempts to change the world for the better. I give less than zero shits if people who adopt this type of attitude don't want to work with me. They're not worth working with to begin with. Go look at the HN launch posts for Dropbox or Coinbase, or the struggles of other companies trying to do something new and make a difference and l…

Lambda's customers (students who want to learn how to code and are negatively impacted by this deception) are builders too.

[deleted]

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#129

Post by dang »

plorkyeran wrote: post #90
aerosmile wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be a lot more inclined to believe anything they said in this article if they didn't show such blatant bias for sensationalist reporting. > His previous work was mostly concerned with “growth hacking,” which is Silicon Valley jargon for finding underappreciated (or, less charitably, underhanded) ways of marketing something. So anyone who put the term "growth hacking" on their resume will now get publicly discr…

> So anyone who put the term "growth hacking" on their resume will now get publicly discredited as being underhanded? Yes? "Growth hacking" has always been basically a euphemism for saying that you're willing to do unethical things for growth.

The term has always made me wince but that is not a fair description.

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#130

Post by jamiequint »

mbesto wrote: post #117
jamiequint wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about a single section in a probably lengthy contract in an area of law (ISAs) that barely existed until a few years ago. I feel like half of HN is picturing a cigar smoking villain, the reality of it is probably far more boring.

People are critical because "world changer builders" can often be found skirting rules that the rest of us have to play in. You're a self described growth hacker, which likely means you too have probably bent a few rules in your day. That's not a criticism of you - you can do your business how you like - but don't be surprised when a bunch of aspiring hackers/techies get annoyed when they see people who do bend the r…

> You're a self described growth hacker

I don't describe myself as a "growth hacker" anywhere that I'm aware of.

> don't be surprised when a bunch of aspiring hackers/techies get annoyed when they see people who do bend the rules to their gain (financial or otherwise) despite having access to the worlds most prominent investors (read -> resources) and seemingly don't do their homework.

Not everything is so black and white. What is more likely is that some lawyer gave an opinion that Lambda School's offering could be interpreted as an educational loan and qualify as such (pretty clearly actually, given that the contract was written by a lawyer), and maybe even said that if they got sued here the remedy would likely be to just clarify the definition.

> Like does Lambda not have access to Wilson Sonsini lawyers like the rest of their cohort?

YC has in-house legal counsel now, and Lambda is an old enough company to have their own counsel. In any case, obviously a lawyer wrote the contract and gave an opinion that doesn't agree with your own expert legal opinion.

> Move fast and break things am I right?

Hopefully! We need a lot more of that in the world. More Zuckerbergs, more Travis Kalaniks. The more the better.

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