Over the last three years at Code Fellows in Seattle (www.CodeFellows.com) we've seen the market change a lot for students, hiring companies and curriculum.
At launch, there was a lot of pent up demand. 400 people applied for a Ruby class of 25. Most that took that first class had been self taught and in the surveys said they had been hacking at projects for an average of 18 months. Code school was a way to speed their path into a professional developer role (note developer, not engineer).
The majority of students today already have a degree and are looking to switch careers, average age of ~30. They are looking for skills to transition so in that way, going back to college isn't an option unless it's for advanced degree. The same is true for the veterans that are transitioning to the workforce, they have been in a very structured environment and want to speed through job ready training vs. four more years at college.
"Stack switchers" tend to be the top of the compensation range. If you have 10 years of .Net experience and want to switch to iOS. You'll earn top dollar. If you don't have much real world experience you'll land an entry level JavaScript job with that skill.
The needs of hiring companies has also shifted as the market has matured. There are more "code school grads" in the market looking for jobs, so the process of screening needs to be better, interviews need to be improved and tools like triplebyte.com improve transparency of skills. Hiring Junior developers has never been the preference for employers. Everyone would rather hire both skill and experience. But when you're competing with larger companies in a hot job market, you'll often take Junior talent that is a good culture fit.
By culture fit I mean a combination of past education, work experience and new skills. Combine that with work ethic and desire and you see why most of the strong code schools have a high (90%+) placement rate.
Curriculum have changed as well. Code schools have to be teaching at the front end of the hiring demand. Teaching an old tech stack where job postings are heading down won't work. Review StackOverflows recent survey if you're curious about stack preferences.
Code schools are also required to be licensed with each state where they do business. That's a requirement not all schools follow. It's really about consumer protection in that way so check with your state.
The industry is still immature and you're correct that there isn't any reporting standards, e.g. are placements rates reported at 90 or 180 days past graduation, etc? We're working with a number of companies like the Iron Yard to standardize on reporting and moving to audited results over time. I hope that someday we can apply the same placement rate standards to other academic institutions. As a dad of college age kids that would be amazing (note the White House tried that two years ago with a scorecard and the Universities said no).
Regarding the debate of should everyone learn to code or no one learn to code? It's a skill, it's not for everyone. It's a job that isn't for everyone. There are a lot of online resources, information sessions and one day courses, start with the low risk version and see if it's for you. With an average starting salary of $71k in Seattle, the compensation appeal is a strong draw for people outside of the tech industry. You may be drawn to the compensation just make sure that you are also drawn to the work.