Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

dfpi.ca.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 306 posts

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#201

Post by pbreit »

DangitBobby wrote: post #196
pbreit wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

My reading of it is that their contract claimed student debt with the school could not be discharged with bankruptcy similar to federal student loans. This is not true, and it's doubtful that the people writing the contract didn't know that it wasn't true. If they were being intentionally deceitful, which I believe is the claim here, it would be to prevent loss of loan-repayment in the case that a student finds the d…

Treatment of student loans in bankruptcy not limited to government loans.

The clause makes Lambda appear less attractive so not clear why it would be included.

Would be nice to hear Lambda’s side.

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#202

Post by emteycz »

minimaxir wrote: post #105
maximilianroos wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH this article makes me more confident that Lambda is overall Good. They found a single program that was substantially deficient, some disorganized operations, and some exaggerated marketing claims. It's starting a new form of education! There are going to be operational headaches and a few misses! While the referenced cases aren't good, we can assess Lambda on their overall contribution, not their mistakes alone.

Lambda School took off PR-wise because their promises made sense on paper. The reality however is more important, especially when humans are adversely impacted if the promises are broken.

Wait until you see the reality in ordinary schools...

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#203

Post by hluska »

sugarwater wrote: post #73
rajacombinator wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that Lambda School is an attempt to actually align the incentives of school and students, which is the main problem with educational financing today. Wrong target to pile on.

As a student that went through the program, I question if their incentives were aligned. During the middle of my enrollment at the program (Sept 2020), the school suddenly dropped all notion of grading, code review, and attendance, let alone the length of the program. It remained this way for 3 months, 50% of the length of the program. This is a broad description of the changes, but I want to emphasize that the chang…

Are you doing okay now?? That sounds awful...:(

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#204

Post by BoiledCabbage »

pbreit wrote: post #190
DangitBobby wrote: post #175

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.

> also not clear they had anything to gain.

Getting people to pay back loans they aren't required to pay back "isn't something to gain?". I'm trying to find a charitable reading of this but am struggling. In what way do you think they have nothing to gain?

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#205

Post by lai-yin »

pugio wrote: post #181
srndsnd wrote: 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?

I was a student at Trilogy. Not sure what they mean. The course was fun. The good students leveled up in their careers. I certainly did.

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#206

Post by kevingadd »

wheelie_boy wrote: post #160
reducesuffering wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dang, is this a normal feature? Since when are users able to retroactively change the profile that made the comment? This looks like covering up a YC founder's past comment, but the archive still exists. According to snapshots it was modified over 2 years later.

This is not a feature available to mere mortals. Your assumption seems likely.

Even more than that, one of the administrators previously told me via email that HN is not able to rename accounts (presumably they use account names instead of numeric IDs as a key somewhere). So the only explanation for the displayed author on that post having changed is that they switched the author of the post, the original author's account could not have been renamed.

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#207

Post by dragonwriter »

throwhalflife wrote: post #186
lsiebert wrote: post #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…

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…

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

It was always false and deliberately deceptive to claim that Lambda’s California Retail Installment Contracts were qualified education loans under federal law, and therefore subject to discharge only on cases of undue hardship.

Lying about that in commerce in CA was not previously something for which there was previously a clear cause of action, especially one which would allow the State to take action. It’s not, at least in purpose, classic fraud: it is designed not to induce purchases but to dissuade past purchasers from seeking bankruptcy relief.

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#208

Post by dragonwriter »

pbreit wrote: post #201
DangitBobby wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My reading of it is that their contract claimed student debt with the school could not be discharged with bankruptcy similar to federal student loans. This is not true, and it's doubtful that the people writing the contract didn't know that it wasn't true. If they were being intentionally deceitful, which I believe is the claim here, it would be to prevent loss of loan-repayment in the case that a student finds the d…

Treatment of student loans in bankruptcy not limited to government loans. The clause makes Lambda appear less attractive so not clear why it would be included. Would be nice to hear Lambda’s side.

> The clause makes Lambda appear less attractive so not clear why it would be included.

It’s designed to dissuade people from seeking bankruptcy to discharge the debt.

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#209

Post by pbreit »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #204
pbreit wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> also not clear they had anything to gain. Getting people to pay back loans they aren't required to pay back "isn't something to gain?". I'm trying to find a charitable reading of this but am struggling. In what way do you think they have nothing to gain?

Makes Lambda look FAR less attractive up front.

You’re only paying back a small percentage of income and that’s IF you are even employed, so it’s not clear how you would be thinking of going into bankruptcy to discharge this loan.

Re: Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing practices

#210

Post by dragonwriter »

imgabe wrote: post #200
DangitBobby wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My reading of it is that their contract claimed student debt with the school could not be discharged with bankruptcy similar to federal student loans. This is not true, and it's doubtful that the people writing the contract didn't know that it wasn't true. If they were being intentionally deceitful, which I believe is the claim here, it would be to prevent loss of loan-repayment in the case that a student finds the d…

But Lambda already forgoes loan repayment if the student doesn't get a job making at least $50k. So why would they go about trying to collect loans from people declaring bankruptcy when they already give up on loans in other circumstances where they would be much easier to pursue? It seems like Lambda was just genuinely confused about what the regulations were regarding their loans and whether they could be discharge…

> But Lambda already forgoes loan repayment if the student doesn't get a job making at least $50k.

No, it doesn’t, ever, for the California Retail Installment Contract at issue.

Their ISA, defers for five years and then discharges.

Post reply on HN