but then one has to be affluent enough to afford to not work for the time it takes to do a mountain of pre-work and then get educated or re-educated, or for many in the USA, re-re-educated, and then one has to then afford to remain unemployed (bootcamps tend to go light on this part when recruiting) while looking for a place that wants to hire a bootcamp graduate.(hint: tough for diversity candidates here) These places are hard to find for many, even many who previously attended and paid for! an ivy school in a dying field. If this were such a wonderful model, and if we actually had a skills gap that needed filling, why aren't these hundreds of desperate and honorable tech employers who are faced with such a gaping skills gap hiring people and training them themselves? If there were such a clamour for those with basic tech skills, why are bootcamp graduates from tier 1 camps struggling to find actual work in their field for months and months? Why are these camps reporting inaccurate or highly embroidered outcomes to potential students?

We're not a bootcamp, but your points are well-founded.

> But then one has to be $$ enough to afford to not work for the time it takes to get educated or re-educated

You're right: Not everyone can afford to not work for six+ months. We don't have a perfect solution for everyone yet. But it's much easier for most Americans to find a way to stay alive for 6 months than it is for them to find $10,000 lying around. Basic subsistence, especially with a tiny bit of help from a safety net of some sort is generally close to within reach, and if it's not we don't have a way to help yet.

For example, we had a student last week that has been living with a friend, and we learned she was so poor she couldn't afford a computer to code with, and had been using an old Android tablet and a cloud editor. We shipped her one, but for many "enough to stay alive" is much, much easier to find than some amount of cash.

> If we actually had a skills gap that needed filling why aren't these employers who are faced with such a gaping skills gap hiring people and training them themselves?

Well, some do. Others have ridiculous recruiters' fees that are enough to pay for student tuitions. This is true not just of alternatives to higher ed, but of colleges. Why doesn't Google also become Stanford? Probably because that's a lot of work and what we have is close enough.

To be clear, with regard to SWE, I don't think there's that big of a skills gap. It's not like there's a desperate shortage for junior rails semi-devs out there. But employers definitely hire folks and they definitely pay big recruiting fees and there's definitely demand.

> Why are bootcamp graduates from tier 1 camps struggling to find actual work in their field for months?

Other than the requisite time to get your first job (which is generally 3-6 months regardless), I haven't seen that any from tier one bootcamps struggling to find work for months. Probably three months on average, but that's pretty normal. Maybe we have a different understanding of "tier 1."

> Why are these camps reporting inaccurate or highly embroidered outcomes to potential students?

Because crappy bootcamps want to lie and make money.

I mean look, there's ITT Tech, which is a complete rip-off for the vast majority of people, but that doesn't mean college in general is a bad thing for everyone. Somehow, though, that's how non-university programming academies get lumped together - one bad bootcamp? This entire idea must be horrible! As with everything, there are shades of grey.

I appreciate your taking the time to speak to these issues honestly. This fact alone sets you very much apart. While I do think your model is better, even lots better, the tuition deferment model can be very misleading to those who don't get the tax/rent burden in SF or NYC (not saying you or your school is misleading students as I don't know it or you... I'll read up). As far as tier 1 bootcamps, I'm pretty sure you and I know who we are speaking of. I do think students should question these schools and their supposed outcomes with a critical mind. The facts aren't reaching these recruits because their desperation for employment is clouding their view, and because many who stand to profit from this desperation are actually in a state of desperation themselves. I'm not saying you are in particular. I am saying that we need to be more responsible and act like a supportive community.

I dropped out of top tier university(online continue education) but yours looks great. I will check it out may be I will get enrolled.

Hmm, I was under the impression that these kind of salary percentage schemes weren't legal? (Mostly just because I've never seen one before.)

Nope, just new. Purdue University uses one as well.

>It shifts the risk from the students to the school, which is IMO how it should be.

I love this idea, thank you for starting this! I think this something there should be more of. I just looked at your site, and noticed the 3% acceptance rate for the $0 upfront cost tier. Just curious how that's changed over time as your exposure has increased. I assume you are trying to maintain some instructor/student ratio, etc? Are you willing to share what limits you from accepting more students at the $0 upfront tier? If so I'd love hear more, lmk.

We've grown almost in line with the increase in applications in number of instructors. We haven't raised real money or anything, so we're limited by the number of instructors and cash we can pay them, but we're growing as quickly as we can without sacrificing quality.

We see hundreds of new applications per day and can only service a small fraction of them. Hopefully we can change that to some degree soon.

Is your program appropriate for students who are high school seniors/graduates as a alternative, or lead-in to college? What level of programming experience is required?

Yes.

You'll want to know intermediate JavaScript coming in. We have courses that prepare you for that free, so apply and we'll figure it out.