Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims

Re:Flatiron School settles for operating without license, em... by tyingq on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @10:16AM (#15491034)

"Under today’s agreement, Flatiron will pay $375,000 in restitution to eligible graduates"

That's better than a fine. Though, it does mention 1000 students total, so perhaps not enough.

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Re:Flatiron School settles for operating without license, em... by 1_800_UNICORN on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @10:38AM (#15491259)

The school, which has taught approximately 1,000 students, charges students between $12,000 and $15,000 for a 12 to 16 week in-person class and approximately $1,500 a month for online coding classes.

Let's assume a very conservative estimate of 800 students doing 1 of online work, and 200 students paying $12k for a class. That works out to $1.2M in online tuition, and $2.4M in in-person tuition. Given how conservative my estimate is, $375k seems like a pittance for operating without a license and lying about success rates.

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Re:Flatiron School settles for operating without license, em... by sevensor on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @10:53AM (#15491392)

It's funny, I did the same math and concluded there's no way they profited enough from this scheme to cover the cost of noncompliance. Even if they took $3.6M in revenue, they had to pay salaries, expensive rent, and overhead for 5 years. That's barely scraping by. Hopefully they're sitting on a pile of investor money they can use to pay this settlement.

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Re:Flatiron School settles for operating without license, em... by amcooper on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @12:50PM (#15492477)

You're forgetting the dropouts. For every online student who graduates from Flatiron, there are many—maybe a dozen, maybe more—who drop out. Flatiron bills online students monthly, so they're raking in a good deal of money from dropouts who can't get their money back.

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Re:Flatiron School settles for operating without license, em... by Fergusman on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @11:38AM (#15491825)

You need to flip the number, the online program is relatively new. The 1,000 taught reflects mostly in-person students.

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Re:Flatiron School settles for operating without license, em... by brooklyn_ashey on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @02:08PM (#15493203)

Bang. You nailed it. So, so far from enough. These students are being told that there is a lack of skilled labor in tech. The city makes a tech-talent pipeline! It seems to the students like a huge opportunity. The news gets Katie Couric on it! And then they are presented with these really positive outcomes that are "verified". It seems like a lot of work to them, but it also looks like real hope.

In the end, when the truth is revealed, each eligible student gets only $375? That might be enough for some raw denim. Who cares about any kind of certification? Real penalties for false claims alone would do it. How about providing each student with that salary they signed up to the program for for a full year? I have a feeling the teaching would get a whole lot better and the admissions process would keep the program small and help with individual mentorship. Not only are these programs wasting students' money, but they are eating up their time in a youth-favoring labor landscape. These schools should have to pay hefty restitution to every student who, encouraged by the so-called "verified", robust outcomes, signed up, and who eventually stopped doing their online course mid-program because they correctly assessed the bootcamp's lack of honesty/interest/vigor regarding the post-apocalyptic tundra that is the web-dev software employment landscape for career changers just entering it.

If a student/grad gets more employer response from a résumé with the "well-respected" bootcamp removed from it...is that something that gets a bootcamp to hold a school-wide pow-wow to brainstorm ideas on how to approach the issue? Does the director send everyone a sincere and heartfelt apology for that? Are there transparent steps taken to get to the bottom of the issue and change it? No, the problem(s) get buried deep under the suffocating culture of infinite positivity that is designed to mute productive critique (that critique, if encouraged, might inspire positive change).

The current students and grads talk to each other and find out just how few employers are interested in bootcamp grads, and of those employers the even smaller group who is interested in bootcamp grads who are also career changers and let's just say "those who are not an obvious culture fit".

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Re:Flatiron School settles for operating without license, em... by Eridrus on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @10:52AM (#15491386)

On one hand, this is a total pittance, on the other hand the value from getting actual statistics out there is pretty huge. I don't know if reaching a small settlement helped with that, but kudos to the AG for shining some light on the issue.

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Re:Flatiron School settles for operating without license, em... by tyingq on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @10:55AM (#15491418)

I'm also happy about it being restitution vs a fine that goes to the government. The latter happens often.

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Re:Flatiron School settles for operating without license, em... by gist on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @11:30AM (#15491747)

And the $375k understates the 'total cost of ownership'. I am sure legal fees ran them anywhere from $50k to several hundred thousand additional.

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