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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

#181
post #6

I'm confused as to why this headline has to be so close to clickbait. I'm not even one to stand up for people like Lambda, I think a lot of bootcamps are shady at best, and actively deceptive at worst (Trilogy). It is definitely important to note that that these loans can be discharged in bankruptcy. But as far as I know, isn't this less stringent than typical student loans, which can't be discharged in bankruptcy? I…

Could you comment a bit more about Trilogy? From what I understand, they provide a bootcamp as a service to be offered by other institutions, such as universities around the world.

Do you have any personal experience of their deception or lack of quality?

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#182
Wanted to clarify two things, since I saw some confusion.

The law changed to make a deceptive statement about what can and can't be discharged in bankruptcy illegal, but it was always false to say that it couldn't be discharged in bankruptcy, even before the law changed.

This isn't a new California department, it's the old DBO under a new name as the DFPI, with enhanced powers to regulate financial matters that were previously unregulated and protect Californians against unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices. Basically there have been lots of innovative financial agreements that weren't well regulated under California law. They also weren't well regulated federally, but that's a whole other issue.

More info on the law here.

https://dfpi.ca.gov/california-consumer-financial-protection...

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bizarre response. You were caught putting deceptive language in your contracts. You now have to hire a third-party to ensure all of your contracts comply with the law, and 90 days to review all of your previous marketing material and certify it wasn't dishonest. You're on probation. This is nothing to be excited about. This is similar to when you fought with the BPPE for a year because they insisted you can…

This is a more bizarre response. You literally take the worst interpretation out of everything, and calling it accurate would be very generous. >You were caught putting deceptive language in your contracts. I'm curious if there's a way you can mess up language in a contract that isn't deceptive/misleading? >You're on probation. This is nothing to be excited about This is standard procedure, but you're clearly paintin…

> I'm curious if there's a way you can mess up language in a contract that isn't deceptive/misleading?

According to the linked document, this was not a typo. This line contradicts reality: "this extension of credit is a qualified educational loan and is subject to the limitations on dischargeability in bankruptcy contained in Section 523(a)(8) of the United States Bankruptcy Code."

In addition, the document points out, "Certain Lambda School marketing has included representations implying its program is “free.”" It is not free.

> This is standard procedure, but you're clearly painting it as if they've been knocked down another peg.

The parent post made it sound like they were out of the woods, when they clearly aren't. If I were the subject of this press release, I would not be "excited."

> And this is blatantly false and makes me further question everything else you've stated.

I did not say they were still operating illegally. I said that they used the word endorsement, when the state had simply approved them. The two words mean different things.

> Try the search function.

I searched for the word "endorse" on that page, and found zero matches.

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#184
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think it is an entirely fair description of the overwhelming majority of the times I see it used. I suppose the person using the term does not always think the thing they are describing is unethical and so do not intend it as a euphemism.

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a more bizarre response. You literally take the worst interpretation out of everything, and calling it accurate would be very generous. >You were caught putting deceptive language in your contracts. I'm curious if there's a way you can mess up language in a contract that isn't deceptive/misleading? >You're on probation. This is nothing to be excited about This is standard procedure, but you're clearly paintin…

> I'm curious if there's a way you can mess up language in a contract that isn't deceptive/misleading? According to the linked document, this was not a typo. This line contradicts reality: "this extension of credit is a qualified educational loan and is subject to the limitations on dischargeability in bankruptcy contained in Section 523(a)(8) of the United States Bankruptcy Code." In addition, the document points ou…

>According to the linked document, this was not a typo. This line contradicts reality: "this extension of credit is a qualified educational loan and is subject to the limitations on dischargeability in bankruptcy contained in Section 523(a)(8) of the United States Bankruptcy Code."

This in no way answered my question.

>In addition, the document points out, "Certain Lambda School marketing has included representations implying its program is “free.”" It is not free.

Interesting and not related to the contract, we're talking about marketing. I find your comments extremely disingenuous, you're switching contexts of "misleading" in the very separate domains of marketing and legal contracts which should be too obvious.

The order is non-specific, so what do you want to get into? "Free until you get a job" comes to mind, is that misleading? I'll argue it's true, given that you don't pay them money when you don't have a job.

>The parent post made it sound like they were out of the woods, when they clearly aren't. If I were the subject of this press release, I would not be "excited."

It's certainly a step forward in my opinion, and you seem to take issue with the fact that it wasn't a flawless approval. Fair enough, your opinion is noted.

>Approval is very different than endorsement.

This seems like doubling down on a total misrepresentation.

Austen clearly said approval, then elaborated to claim it was an endorsement of their relatively unique education model. You don't need to be that generous to imagine that 'approval' by a body (which only approves or does not) of a new/innovative model is something of an endorsement of this new model.

You picked out endorsement, and responded as if he had said "BPPE endorsed our program". It's clearly not what he said.

Austen even appears to have removed the egregious line, which I imagine makes sense from a PR standpoint as people will try to misrepresent it as you have.

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#186

Wanted to clarify two things, since I saw some confusion. The law changed to make a deceptive statement about what can and can't be discharged in bankruptcy illegal, but it was always false to say that it couldn't be discharged in bankruptcy, even before the law changed. This isn't a new California department, it's the old DBO under a new name as the DFPI, with enhanced powers to regulate financial matters that were…

Thank you, if possible, would like some more clarification, since I'm still a bit confused (if not more confused) after reading this.

Are you suggesting this isn't an introduction of new regulations per se, since it was always a deceptive statement?

Or was the law actually changed by this California department specifically because of what Lambda was doing?

I get that the finance agreement was "innovative", but either it's dischargeable under bankruptcy -- or it's not -- and if it IS dischargeable, language implying that it is not dischargeable is deceptive. My understanding is that they have no power over bankruptcy proceedings, so whether they would LIKE it to be dischargeable or not bears no interest here.

This isn't some heavy-handed regulator stepping in and stopping innovation -- as a private for-profit business, you simply can't twist existing federal law around student loans to your benefit here, and that's always been the case all along. Deception aside, which I believe the word for is "fraud"; there's been a history of predatory financing around education. I was happy when it was DeVry University getting the book, and I'm also happy when it was some "cool" startup company as well.

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#187
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think it is an entirely fair description of the overwhelming majority of the times I see it used. I suppose the person using the term does not always think the thing they are describing is unethical and so do not intend it as a euphemism.

What's missing in your description is the timeline. Note that the term was first introduced by Sean Ellis in 2010, and according to Google Trends it peaked in usage in 2014. At some point (2014?), it became a buzzword and suddenly every marketer started using it. So in 2021, when someone puts "Growth Hacker" on their resume, you draw a very different mental picture than you did in 2010. Is it fair to put the 2010-people into the same bucket as the 2021-people? I have no idea when and why Austen was using this term. But calling him underhanded for that reason alone comes across as biased.

Btw, "growth hacker" is not the only term whose perception changed throughout its lifetime. Here's a fun one: PHP. Actually, many other technologies suffer the same fate (Java, Rails, etc). Sort of related: NoSQL.

Prediction for a future liability term: AI (what are the chances that in 2030 people will feel about it the same way they feel about it today?).

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#188
post #181
post #6

I'm confused as to why this headline has to be so close to clickbait. I'm not even one to stand up for people like Lambda, I think a lot of bootcamps are shady at best, and actively deceptive at worst (Trilogy). It is definitely important to note that that these loans can be discharged in bankruptcy. But as far as I know, isn't this less stringent than typical student loans, which can't be discharged in bankruptcy? I…

Could you comment a bit more about Trilogy? From what I understand, they provide a bootcamp as a service to be offered by other institutions, such as universities around the world. Do you have any personal experience of their deception or lack of quality?

Agreed hopefully we get a response. I was an instructor for Trilogy, didn't really see any 'deceptive practices' in my couple years there.

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#189

Hey everyone, Pretty excited to reach settlement on this one. The DFPI is a new regulatory agency in California that was tasked with reviewing Lambda School’s new incentive-aligned tuition ( https://lambdaschool.com/tuition/tuition-options ) in California. They came back requesting that we update a bankruptcy provision in the agreement to clarify that these agreements are dischargeable in bankruptcy, and to do a revi…

Oh will you just shut up and go away forever.

Scamming people with your predatory startup and trying to brush it all off with this faux cheeriness really is disgusting.

What is even the point of your existence? You're just a parasite. Get out of here.

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#190

Isn't lying to trick people for financial gain to their detriment fraud? > Fraud is an intentionally deceptive action designed to provide the perpetrator with an unlawful gain or to deny a right to a victim. Types of fraud include tax fraud, credit card fraud, wire fraud, securities fraud, and bankruptcy fraud. Fraudulent activity can be carried out by one individual, multiple individuals or a business firm as a whol…

Not clear to me that they were lying. Also not clear they had anything to gain.
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