10 ms·

Whether you believe code schools are good or bad (I lean somewhat towards good), I wonder if we have not fully learned the lesson from the rash several years ag

by polpo 9y ago

Whether you believe code schools are good or bad (I lean somewhat towards good), I wonder if we have not fully learned the lesson from the rash several years ago of fly-by-night for-profit colleges preying on vets and providing substandard education and inflated job promises, all on the GI Bill's dime. I worry that if the GI Bill was extended to code schools, we'd see the exact same thing happen again.

faitswulff 9y ago
There are VA-approved schools, as the article notes: https://operationcode.org/code_schools https://operationcode.org/code_schools > Some code schools do accept GI Bill benefits — longer-standing ones that have made it through State Approving Agencies, which work on behalf of the Department of Veterans Affairs to decide which programs can use GI Bill money. So it can be done, and responsibly. I guess the only thing that's left is to increase the number of seats at VA approved schools.
rezashirazian 9y ago
I think established and accredited universities should set up two year coding programs that can teach the trade as opposed to pop up overpriced bootcamps that usually operate without much accountability. Then the GI Bill can pick up the tab for such programs.
- brianwawok 9y ago
  A 4 year college program didn't teach me to code, what makes you think a 2 year program could? I learned how to write my own linked list however..
  - kasey_junk 9y ago
    You are being downvoted I suspect because people are assuming you mean it's not possible to learn to code in 2 years, when what I suspect you mean is "why waste resources on poorly planned school curriculum regardless of timing when other options (such as the apprentice model) are available"
    - brianwawok 9y ago
      Yes exactly. I learned tons in college. Still not enough to make my own crud app. In that way, bootcamps do a better job. If we are doing a 2 year turbo degree, they could learn a lot from boot camps.
      - mac01021 9y ago
        So, after you finished your degree and started trying to learn to make a CRUD app, how long did it take you to be able to make such an app and reason intelligently about its behavior? How long would it have taken you if you had not done that degree first?
- cbhl 9y ago
  But those programs wouldn't meet the accreditation requirements, which usually require minimum numbers of teaching hours. Plus, established universities don't teach the trade, they teach you how to think about learning the trade. You actually learn the trade in co-ops and internships and by doing it.
  - Chaebixi 9y ago
    > Plus, established universities don't teach the trade, they teach you how to think about learning the trade. A university wouldn't run a program like a code school. They're a better fit for a tech school or community college (which can be public, regionally accredited, and part of a larger state higher education system).
  - rezashirazian 9y ago
    I don't mean create a CS like curriculum that would lead to an official degree, but build a continuous education program which teaches the trade.
- nradov 9y ago
  There's no need to water down university education. We already have community colleges which offer Associate's Degrees and university extensions which offer certificate programs. For example in Silicon Valley, De Anza college offers an AS degree in Programming and UCSC Extension offers a certificate program in Software Engineering. Those can be good options for someone who just wants to learn practical code construction skills without getting deep into CS theory. https://www.deanza.edu/counseling/degreecert.html https://www.deanza.edu/counseling/degreecert.html https://www.ucsc-extension.edu/programs/software-engineering/schedule https://www.ucsc-extension.edu/programs/software-engineering...
cbhl 9y ago
I wonder whether it would be better to provide employers in tech money to train <target group> directly, on the condition that X% of them retain full-time employment of at least $XXX,000 for five years following "graduation". The idea is to align incentives -- the employers get to try vets, and if they succeed, everyone gets more money.
- drawnwren 9y ago
  Code schools are not very conducive to retention, especially not on a 5 year scale. Keep in mind most boot camp grads are going to front end jobs at mid-early stage startups.
  - grogenaut 9y ago
    Is that the san francisco view of what code camp people do or the US wide reality. When we're talking about a US wide problem we should be really looking at US wide solutions because, like it or not, a lot of people don't want to live in San Fran. If code camps really only supply SF Startups with front end coders I don't think that's worthy of a national program.
killjoywashere 9y ago
When I was general medical officer in the Navy, among other clinic duties, I did exit physicals for sailors, sometimes 20 a week. I would always try to talk to them about their plans for the future. Some seemed to be squared away. But I can't tell you how many times someone told me their plan was to take online classes from some sketchy school I'd never heard of. I'd google it with them, it would be some online university. Then I'd urge them about brick-and-mortar schools. What most of society doesn't seem to understand is that returning veterans are quite anxious about getting out and this makes them very vulnerable. They are like the Trump voters willing to throw their lot in with whomever tells them "it will be okay", regardless of how unscrupulous and incompetent those promise-makers are.
- aaronchall 9y ago
  I agree on the brick-and-mortar schools suggestion. I wrote this in favor of them: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/14833/9518 https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/14833/9518 > Students overwhelmingly report retaining and applying less from online courses versus face-to-face courses. > However, this may be due to a difference in factors other than distance learning. However, I find your insult to Trump voters gratuitous and unnecessary.
  - dmix 9y ago
    > However, I find your insult to Trump voters gratuitous and unnecessary. I originally upvoted the OP's comment as I somehow missed this aside at the end and unvoted. HN is really not the place for that stuff...
    - killjoywashere 9y ago
      As OP, I would like to adopt dpwm's restatement: > They are like [the] Trump voters willing to throw their lot in with whomever tells them "it will be okay", regardless of how unscrupulous and incompetent those promise-makers are.
  - aykm84 9y ago
    Reminder: Trump University probably falls under the category of 'sketchy school'. www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/31/522199535/judge-approves-25-million-settlement-of-trump-university-lawsuit
aphextron 9y ago
> I worry that if the GI Bill was extended to code schools, we'd see the exact same thing happen again. This is dead on. I am a veteran currently going back to school for an engineering degree on the GI bill. When I got out of the service I didn't even consider going back to school, and just taught myself how to code and started working as a web developer. Once I made it to the point of working with other software engineers with formal educations in a large firm though, I realized the depths of my ignorance. I hit a wall that no amount of javascript bootcamps or rails tutorials could ever get me past. The fundamental knowledge of math and science that separates engineers from 'coders'. I think the VA is absolutely doing the right thing here by not allowing code schools to take advantage of GI bill money. The industry does not need more coders, it needs more engineers. If these schools were legitimate they would be working in connection with established universities to provide accelerated ABET accredited degrees. You'll notice that the article posted mentioned nothing of the actual long term success rates of these programs, either.
- WalterBright 9y ago
  > knowledge of math and science Right. You cannot solve engineering problems with programming skills unless you also know engineering, just like you cannot write accounting software unless you know accounting, etc. For another example, if you were coding the Shazam app, a good understanding of undergraduate math is needed to code of the fast fourier transform part. Even more so, one would need that knowledge to even realize that an FFT was the path to a solution.
- JamesBarney 9y ago
  I agree with you about the VA. But when you say the industry needs more engineers not coders I find this ironic because I have lots of engineering friends who became coders, and no coding friends who became engineers.
- z3t4 9y ago
  i agree that we need more engineers. but a degree is basically just a proof that you can learn. the real learning begins when you start to work.
- 9y ago
ajarmst 9y ago
Exactly. The goal of the regulation isn't to prevent veterans from learning to code, it's to prevent them for being preyed upon. The OP has an unexamined premise: that the "code camps" described are an effective entry point for a programming career. As the readers on Hacker News are well aware, that's a pretty shaky premise.
bernardlunn 9y ago
We need a revolution in EdTech as well. Something that leverages online MOOCS and flipped classrooms at the local level staffed by developers in the real world working on a volunteer basis. The tools are there, the will is there, why is this not happening?
- grogenaut 9y ago
  What is the problem that MOOCS are solving here that other solutions aren't? There's really no way to have a discussion about why it's not happening or why it may or may not work without actual discussion of the benefits of a MOOC vs alternatives. Also many many veterans, during their service, avail themselves of old school MOOCs before they exited. They're called correspondance courses or sattelite courses and most of them are from traditional colleges and even allow you to finish up your degree at said college. What does a MOOC offer over this? If enough vets aren't using these why is a MOOC going to be the magic bullet?
BWStearns 9y ago
I despise the GI Bill scavengers disguised as schools, but that's no reason to not find a way to integrate boot camps into the offerings. There are still plenty of traditional schools that take GI bill money and provide basically no benefit. At least there will be built in skepticism when assessing code schools which may help weed out the shadier folks (even if it makes it a pain in the ass to get approved by the VA/state approvers).
jhbadger 9y ago
I'm from Wisconsin and am currently reading "Janesville: An American Story", which is about the city of Janesville, WI and what happened when the GM auto plant closed in 2008. A lot of subsidies went to retraining the unemployed factory workers because that's supposedly how you are supposed to treat factory closings. But it turns out that when you compare the salaries of the workers who went back to school (tech school or university) versus the ones who just found other employment, the ones who went to school actually ended up earning less on average. Yes, income isn't everything about education, it is supposed to make you a better person and so forth, but such unintuitive results really make you think.
- zeroer 9y ago
  Unless the laid off workers are randomly assigned to training or finding other work there's a pretty serious selection bias that the people with the best prospects are the least likely seek training.
- grogenaut 9y ago
  Got any sources for that from the book I can peek at?
  - jhbadger 9y ago
    The book itself contains an appendix which shows the analysis. It doesn't seem to have been published as a journal article, but it is based on publically available data and basically the same argument was put forth by the author of the book in an article on ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/rare-agreement-obama-romney-ryan-endorse-retraining-for-jobless-but-are-the https://www.propublica.org/article/rare-agreement-obama-romn...
vivekd 9y ago
There's no reason we can't have an accreditation program to ensure that only reputable schools can get access to GI bills. This whole problem of predatory colleges doesn't seem like an insurmountable one. It seems more an issue with legislative inertia and poor implementation rather than an intrinsic failing of GI education plans.
- panzer_wyrm 9y ago
  I am not sure that would even help. The current culture war on the elite campuses and the dominating narrative would probably not be welcoming to a lot of straight masculine males with somewhat conservative leanings and on government dime that participated in the US wars. And not be able to give them the environment and support to reintegrate them into society. Very shitty situation. The reason post WWII GI bill worked that well was that there were veterans everywhere from WWI and the draft that they could relate to and get help.
  - grogenaut 9y ago
    Yes, god forbid we encourage mixing of world views because it might challenge both side's opinions of the other and gasp might even lead to some improvements. Lets continue to segregate as much as possible. Also according to wikipedia there has been a form of the GI bill running basically continuously since WWII, so this isn't a new change. What I think is hard about college for a lot of people is that much of the learning, even more than highschool, has no immediate relevance. Heck I remember hating a lot of intro CS classes because I was solving problems I didn't care about. Or think about asking a kid what they'd want to program a computer for. For most it's such an abstract problem to problems they haven't even encountered yet that they can't even think of anything. Same goes for a lot of people which can be a bug turn off for a more traditional college education. That said I still think you need a foundation in the theoretical as well as the practical.
    - metaphor 9y ago
      >> Also according to wikipedia there has been a form of the GI bill running basically continuously since WWII, so this isn't a new change. Would you be able to point out more precisely what you were referring to? I did not find such an assertion anywhere on the Wiki page[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

by polpo 9y ago

faitswulff 9y ago

There are VA-approved schools, as the article notes: https://operationcode.org/code_schools https://operationcode.org/code_schools > Some code schools do accept GI Bill benefits — longer-standing ones that have made it through State Approving Agencies, which work on behalf of the Department of Veterans Affairs to decide which programs can use GI Bill money. So it can be done, and responsibly. I guess the only thing that's left is to increase the number of seats at VA approved schools.

rezashirazian 9y ago

I think established and accredited universities should set up two year coding programs that can teach the trade as opposed to pop up overpriced bootcamps that usually operate without much accountability. Then the GI Bill can pick up the tab for such programs.

brianwawok 9y ago
A 4 year college program didn't teach me to code, what makes you think a 2 year program could? I learned how to write my own linked list however..
- kasey_junk 9y ago
  You are being downvoted I suspect because people are assuming you mean it's not possible to learn to code in 2 years, when what I suspect you mean is "why waste resources on poorly planned school curriculum regardless of timing when other options (such as the apprentice model) are available"
  - brianwawok 9y ago
    Yes exactly. I learned tons in college. Still not enough to make my own crud app. In that way, bootcamps do a better job. If we are doing a 2 year turbo degree, they could learn a lot from boot camps.
    - mac01021 9y ago
      So, after you finished your degree and started trying to learn to make a CRUD app, how long did it take you to be able to make such an app and reason intelligently about its behavior? How long would it have taken you if you had not done that degree first?
cbhl 9y ago
But those programs wouldn't meet the accreditation requirements, which usually require minimum numbers of teaching hours. Plus, established universities don't teach the trade, they teach you how to think about learning the trade. You actually learn the trade in co-ops and internships and by doing it.
- Chaebixi 9y ago
  > Plus, established universities don't teach the trade, they teach you how to think about learning the trade. A university wouldn't run a program like a code school. They're a better fit for a tech school or community college (which can be public, regionally accredited, and part of a larger state higher education system).
- rezashirazian 9y ago
  I don't mean create a CS like curriculum that would lead to an official degree, but build a continuous education program which teaches the trade.
nradov 9y ago
There's no need to water down university education. We already have community colleges which offer Associate's Degrees and university extensions which offer certificate programs. For example in Silicon Valley, De Anza college offers an AS degree in Programming and UCSC Extension offers a certificate program in Software Engineering. Those can be good options for someone who just wants to learn practical code construction skills without getting deep into CS theory. https://www.deanza.edu/counseling/degreecert.html https://www.deanza.edu/counseling/degreecert.html https://www.ucsc-extension.edu/programs/software-engineering/schedule https://www.ucsc-extension.edu/programs/software-engineering...

cbhl 9y ago

I wonder whether it would be better to provide employers in tech money to train <target group> directly, on the condition that X% of them retain full-time employment of at least $XXX,000 for five years following "graduation". The idea is to align incentives -- the employers get to try vets, and if they succeed, everyone gets more money.

drawnwren 9y ago
Code schools are not very conducive to retention, especially not on a 5 year scale. Keep in mind most boot camp grads are going to front end jobs at mid-early stage startups.
- grogenaut 9y ago
  Is that the san francisco view of what code camp people do or the US wide reality. When we're talking about a US wide problem we should be really looking at US wide solutions because, like it or not, a lot of people don't want to live in San Fran. If code camps really only supply SF Startups with front end coders I don't think that's worthy of a national program.

killjoywashere 9y ago

When I was general medical officer in the Navy, among other clinic duties, I did exit physicals for sailors, sometimes 20 a week. I would always try to talk to them about their plans for the future. Some seemed to be squared away. But I can't tell you how many times someone told me their plan was to take online classes from some sketchy school I'd never heard of. I'd google it with them, it would be some online university. Then I'd urge them about brick-and-mortar schools. What most of society doesn't seem to understand is that returning veterans are quite anxious about getting out and this makes them very vulnerable. They are like the Trump voters willing to throw their lot in with whomever tells them "it will be okay", regardless of how unscrupulous and incompetent those promise-makers are.

aaronchall 9y ago
I agree on the brick-and-mortar schools suggestion. I wrote this in favor of them: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/14833/9518 https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/14833/9518 > Students overwhelmingly report retaining and applying less from online courses versus face-to-face courses. > However, this may be due to a difference in factors other than distance learning. However, I find your insult to Trump voters gratuitous and unnecessary.
- dmix 9y ago
  > However, I find your insult to Trump voters gratuitous and unnecessary. I originally upvoted the OP's comment as I somehow missed this aside at the end and unvoted. HN is really not the place for that stuff...
  - killjoywashere 9y ago
    As OP, I would like to adopt dpwm's restatement: > They are like [the] Trump voters willing to throw their lot in with whomever tells them "it will be okay", regardless of how unscrupulous and incompetent those promise-makers are.
- aykm84 9y ago
  Reminder: Trump University probably falls under the category of 'sketchy school'. www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/31/522199535/judge-approves-25-million-settlement-of-trump-university-lawsuit

aphextron 9y ago

> I worry that if the GI Bill was extended to code schools, we'd see the exact same thing happen again. This is dead on. I am a veteran currently going back to school for an engineering degree on the GI bill. When I got out of the service I didn't even consider going back to school, and just taught myself how to code and started working as a web developer. Once I made it to the point of working with other software engineers with formal educations in a large firm though, I realized the depths of my ignorance. I hit a wall that no amount of javascript bootcamps or rails tutorials could ever get me past. The fundamental knowledge of math and science that separates engineers from 'coders'. I think the VA is absolutely doing the right thing here by not allowing code schools to take advantage of GI bill money. The industry does not need more coders, it needs more engineers. If these schools were legitimate they would be working in connection with established universities to provide accelerated ABET accredited degrees. You'll notice that the article posted mentioned nothing of the actual long term success rates of these programs, either.

WalterBright 9y ago
> knowledge of math and science Right. You cannot solve engineering problems with programming skills unless you also know engineering, just like you cannot write accounting software unless you know accounting, etc. For another example, if you were coding the Shazam app, a good understanding of undergraduate math is needed to code of the fast fourier transform part. Even more so, one would need that knowledge to even realize that an FFT was the path to a solution.
JamesBarney 9y ago
I agree with you about the VA. But when you say the industry needs more engineers not coders I find this ironic because I have lots of engineering friends who became coders, and no coding friends who became engineers.
z3t4 9y ago
i agree that we need more engineers. but a degree is basically just a proof that you can learn. the real learning begins when you start to work.
9y ago

ajarmst 9y ago

Exactly. The goal of the regulation isn't to prevent veterans from learning to code, it's to prevent them for being preyed upon. The OP has an unexamined premise: that the "code camps" described are an effective entry point for a programming career. As the readers on Hacker News are well aware, that's a pretty shaky premise.

bernardlunn 9y ago

We need a revolution in EdTech as well. Something that leverages online MOOCS and flipped classrooms at the local level staffed by developers in the real world working on a volunteer basis. The tools are there, the will is there, why is this not happening?

grogenaut 9y ago
What is the problem that MOOCS are solving here that other solutions aren't? There's really no way to have a discussion about why it's not happening or why it may or may not work without actual discussion of the benefits of a MOOC vs alternatives. Also many many veterans, during their service, avail themselves of old school MOOCs before they exited. They're called correspondance courses or sattelite courses and most of them are from traditional colleges and even allow you to finish up your degree at said college. What does a MOOC offer over this? If enough vets aren't using these why is a MOOC going to be the magic bullet?

BWStearns 9y ago

I despise the GI Bill scavengers disguised as schools, but that's no reason to not find a way to integrate boot camps into the offerings. There are still plenty of traditional schools that take GI bill money and provide basically no benefit. At least there will be built in skepticism when assessing code schools which may help weed out the shadier folks (even if it makes it a pain in the ass to get approved by the VA/state approvers).

jhbadger 9y ago

I'm from Wisconsin and am currently reading "Janesville: An American Story", which is about the city of Janesville, WI and what happened when the GM auto plant closed in 2008. A lot of subsidies went to retraining the unemployed factory workers because that's supposedly how you are supposed to treat factory closings. But it turns out that when you compare the salaries of the workers who went back to school (tech school or university) versus the ones who just found other employment, the ones who went to school actually ended up earning less on average. Yes, income isn't everything about education, it is supposed to make you a better person and so forth, but such unintuitive results really make you think.

zeroer 9y ago
Unless the laid off workers are randomly assigned to training or finding other work there's a pretty serious selection bias that the people with the best prospects are the least likely seek training.
grogenaut 9y ago
Got any sources for that from the book I can peek at?
- jhbadger 9y ago
  The book itself contains an appendix which shows the analysis. It doesn't seem to have been published as a journal article, but it is based on publically available data and basically the same argument was put forth by the author of the book in an article on ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/rare-agreement-obama-romney-ryan-endorse-retraining-for-jobless-but-are-the https://www.propublica.org/article/rare-agreement-obama-romn...

vivekd 9y ago

There's no reason we can't have an accreditation program to ensure that only reputable schools can get access to GI bills. This whole problem of predatory colleges doesn't seem like an insurmountable one. It seems more an issue with legislative inertia and poor implementation rather than an intrinsic failing of GI education plans.

panzer_wyrm 9y ago
I am not sure that would even help. The current culture war on the elite campuses and the dominating narrative would probably not be welcoming to a lot of straight masculine males with somewhat conservative leanings and on government dime that participated in the US wars. And not be able to give them the environment and support to reintegrate them into society. Very shitty situation. The reason post WWII GI bill worked that well was that there were veterans everywhere from WWI and the draft that they could relate to and get help.
- grogenaut 9y ago
  Yes, god forbid we encourage mixing of world views because it might challenge both side's opinions of the other and gasp might even lead to some improvements. Lets continue to segregate as much as possible. Also according to wikipedia there has been a form of the GI bill running basically continuously since WWII, so this isn't a new change. What I think is hard about college for a lot of people is that much of the learning, even more than highschool, has no immediate relevance. Heck I remember hating a lot of intro CS classes because I was solving problems I didn't care about. Or think about asking a kid what they'd want to program a computer for. For most it's such an abstract problem to problems they haven't even encountered yet that they can't even think of anything. Same goes for a lot of people which can be a bug turn off for a more traditional college education. That said I still think you need a foundation in the theoretical as well as the practical.
  - metaphor 9y ago
    >> Also according to wikipedia there has been a form of the GI bill running basically continuously since WWII, so this isn't a new change. Would you be able to point out more precisely what you were referring to? I did not find such an assertion anywhere on the Wiki page[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]