It is a terrible deal. Lambda School’s stipend programme (places limited) pays students $2,000 a month for the nine months of their job training, while they get trained 40 hours a week and that includes interview prep and placement and job search help that makes university careers offices look like they’re going through the motions, not trying to get the students a job.

And after paying students $18,000 and spending nine months getting them job ready and helping them find a job they only have to pay back

> Upon completion of the program, students will pay 10% of their salary for a five year period once they're making at least $50,000 per year. The max possible payment is capped at $50,000.

https://lambdaschool.com/stipend/

Or if you don’t get the stipend

> There are no up-front costs required to attend Lambda School; we only get paid when you do. Once you’re earning at least $50k per year you’ll pay back 17% of your income for the first two years.

> Total tuition possible is capped at a maximum of $30k, so no matter how much you’re getting paid the most you could possibly pay is $30k.

https://lambdaschool.com/about/

This seems pretty amazing. If anyone who's gone through this program sees this, what's the catch/is there a catch? Seems almost too good to be true.

They're a YC company. I've seen their students on Twitter talking about how it transformed their lives.

I think it's just the first salvo in a disruption that's been waiting to happen for a while.

Do they also get a payment from the employers (like a staffing agency would?)

Just went to apply, but seems they shut down the stipend applications for now because of overwhelming interest.

You are comparing a loan to an equity. The ROI on equity usually is higher than on a loan, if all goes well. But the risks are higher.

In this case, if you graduate AND work AND at an average salary AND have no health problem, you payout will be higher than on a loan. But if any of these condition is not met (eg: you have trouble finding a job, your starting salary is lower than expected, ...) then you don’t have to pay as much. It’s more expensive in a best case scenario, but much more comfortable and safer in any other case. The risk is shared between you and the « lender ».

I think this analysis is missing the main point of this kind of agreement, and that is that in the worst case scenario -- the graduate can't find employment, or income can't support the student loan payments -- this agreement should be better than straight loans. From another article [1]: "At Messiah College, students who opt for the school's ISA will pay between 3 and 3.5 percent of their future income for a set period of time. Payments are waived if a graduate's salary drops below $25,000 a year." (Of course, I don't know if this example is representative of all of these agreements)

On one hand, I could see this working for students going for degrees with less job certainty than comp sci. But on the other hand, this does seem like treating a symptom rather than the causes, like we're encouraging too many people to go for degrees that don't lead to gainful employment or self-sufficiency.

[1] https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-co...