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Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

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Re: Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

#21

Post by slow_donkey »

exporectomy wrote: post #15
sandofsky wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Colleges are predatory, putting kids deep into debt that they may never be able to repay and can't even remove with bankruptcy. We're not talking about colleges. The fact other scams exist in the world has zero bearing on whether one specific company is scamming people. > Whereas Lambda aligns their interests with the student. They align themselves with their investors. That's their fiduciary duty. If you want to u…

We are implicitly comparing it to colleges and every other competitor. That's what relative words like the way "predatory" is used here mean. Predatory relative to the rest of the field. It doesn't really have an absolute meaning.

I haven't reviewed their numbers recently but the historical criticism is that you end up paying more money for Lambda yet their placement rate was lower compared to similar bootcamps.

Re: Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

#22

Post by cornel_io »

sandofsky wrote: post #14
seriousquestion wrote: post #7

Colleges are predatory, putting kids deep into debt that they may never be able to repay and can't even remove with bankruptcy. And said debt has exploded in recent decades with no corresponding improvement in outcomes. Whereas Lambda aligns their interests with the student. If their students don't get a job, Lambda doesn't get paid. Why is a better model being attacked like this?

> Colleges are predatory, putting kids deep into debt that they may never be able to repay and can't even remove with bankruptcy. We're not talking about colleges. The fact other scams exist in the world has zero bearing on whether one specific company is scamming people. > Whereas Lambda aligns their interests with the student. They align themselves with their investors. That's their fiduciary duty. If you want to u…

If ISAs don't pay out, then hedge funds will not be willing to pay as much to buy them. So at least on that point, the mere fact that they're sold off doesn't cause any misalignment.

Re: Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

#24

Post by WoodenChair »

throwawaysea wrote: post #20

I’m not sure who this works is or why his seemingly shallow tweets are important to pay attention to. Can someone explain? Surely criticizing Lambda is far less useful than criticizing the university system, which provides far worse outcomes for far more money?

> Surely criticizing Lambda is far less useful than criticizing the university system, which provides far worse outcomes for far more money?

You have to compare apples to apples. The university system encompasses far more than Lambda school. I think a fair comparison would be how well does the average person with a degree in CS or Software Engineering from a university do (or even maybe a community college so the timespan is closer to a boot camp)? In my experience the answer is very well.

Re: Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

#25

Post by slow_donkey »

seriousquestion wrote: post #7

Colleges are predatory, putting kids deep into debt that they may never be able to repay and can't even remove with bankruptcy. And said debt has exploded in recent decades with no corresponding improvement in outcomes. Whereas Lambda aligns their interests with the student. If their students don't get a job, Lambda doesn't get paid. Why is a better model being attacked like this?

I highly recommend reading Vincent Woo's piece about Lambda to understand the criticism better with actual evidence. https://vincentwoo.com/2020/05/19/on-lambda-school/

It's also arguably not an equivalent comparison. Many people attending these bootcamps have already graduated college and tend to forgo work to attend - there is a huge opportunity cost even if they don't directly lose money. I have no reason to believe the model wouldn't work, but there's ample evidence that the implementation of the model via Lambda is flawed.

Re: Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

#26

Post by FlyingSnake »

sandofsky wrote: post #14
seriousquestion wrote: post #7

Colleges are predatory, putting kids deep into debt that they may never be able to repay and can't even remove with bankruptcy. And said debt has exploded in recent decades with no corresponding improvement in outcomes. Whereas Lambda aligns their interests with the student. If their students don't get a job, Lambda doesn't get paid. Why is a better model being attacked like this?

> Colleges are predatory, putting kids deep into debt that they may never be able to repay and can't even remove with bankruptcy. We're not talking about colleges. The fact other scams exist in the world has zero bearing on whether one specific company is scamming people. > Whereas Lambda aligns their interests with the student. They align themselves with their investors. That's their fiduciary duty. If you want to u…

> Colleges are predatory

I see this argument all the time when such predatory bootcamps are brought up. Firstly Universities, notwithstanding their shortcomings, have a long history going back to millennia. Their importance in human history is unparalleled. While some US American universities have turned into debt traps, it's not the same case universally. It is unfair to compare these predatory bootcamps with universities.

Re: Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

#27

Post by exdsq »

potions wrote: post #5

Lambda School seems questionable for a few reasons I was already aware of as a semi-habitual hirer of bootcampers: trying to scale too fast & degrading the product, possibly disaligned incentives if ISAs are sold off immediately, etc. If I weren't aware of these issues, this tweet/thread would not have taught me about them. However -- "Naturally they're partnered with Amazon"...to get people jobs as programmers at Am…

I would love to meet a bootcamp grad with no programming experience that got into Jane Street. They would have to be truly exceptional, given the onus they put on CS fundamentals (for example they sponsor OPLSS).

Re: Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

#29

Post by [deleted] »

sandofsky wrote: post #14
seriousquestion wrote: post #7

Colleges are predatory, putting kids deep into debt that they may never be able to repay and can't even remove with bankruptcy. And said debt has exploded in recent decades with no corresponding improvement in outcomes. Whereas Lambda aligns their interests with the student. If their students don't get a job, Lambda doesn't get paid. Why is a better model being attacked like this?

> Colleges are predatory, putting kids deep into debt that they may never be able to repay and can't even remove with bankruptcy. We're not talking about colleges. The fact other scams exist in the world has zero bearing on whether one specific company is scamming people. > Whereas Lambda aligns their interests with the student. They align themselves with their investors. That's their fiduciary duty. If you want to u…

[deleted]

Re: Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

#30

Post by [deleted] »

throwawaysea wrote: post #20

I’m not sure who this works is or why his seemingly shallow tweets are important to pay attention to. Can someone explain? Surely criticizing Lambda is far less useful than criticizing the university system, which provides far worse outcomes for far more money?

[deleted]
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