12 ms·

Launch HN: Lambda School (YC S17) – CS education that's free until you get a job

436 points by austenallred 9y ago

Hey HN, We're Lambda School (https://lambdaschool.com/computer-science https://lambdaschool.com/computer-science). We train people to become software engineers, and we charge nothing until a student gets a software job that pays more than $50k/yr. At that point we take 17% of income for two years (capped at a maximum of $30k total). There are so many people held back from a high quality education simply because they can't afford the cost and/or risk. Even if you can get student loans, four years and a potential six figures of student loans is a daunting proposition, especially if you come from a lower-income background. New alternatives, such as code bootcamps, either require expensive loans or tens of thousands of dollars in cash up front, which most people don't have, and they vary widely in quality. This leaves a lot of very smart people working for not much money. We're different. We're an educational institution that owns the risk: if you don't get a good job, we don't get paid. We do everything in small, interactive, online classes with world-class instructors (currently from Stanford, Berkeley, Hack Reactor, etc.). Our curriculum goes a lot deeper than code bootcamps as well; we use C++ and spend a lot of time with lower-level algorithms, data structures, architecture, scaling, etc. The full curriculum is here: https://github.com/LambdaSchool/LambdaCSA-Syllabus https://github.com/LambdaSchool/LambdaCSA-Syllabus. Happy to answer any questions and looking forward to hearing feedback!

jbob2000 9y ago
How do you know that your graduates are or aren't making more than 50k? How do you know that you're getting your 17%? Aside from that, you're essentially giving your students a loan and then having them repay it once they start earning money. How is this any different than a regular student loan (but with way more risk on your end)?
- austenallred 9y ago
  > How do you know that your graduates are or aren't making more than 50k? Great question. In addition to our income share agreement, each student submits a form to the IRS that will essentially copy us on their taxes. We have annual reconciliation based on those numbers to see if they match a student's self-reported numbers. > You're essentially giving your students a loan and then having them repay it once they start earning money. Eh, kind of. The biggest difference is if they don't get a job that pays $50k+ they don't pay us. Also, if you ever lose a job, your payments stop until you're back on your feet. It's an equity instrument, and we think it's much better and more forgiving than loans as a result of that.
  - jbob2000 9y ago
    Ah cool! I was curious about the income thing, thanks for sharing!
  - mkagenius 9y ago
    If that's a step function, then people would be happy earning $49,999 than $60k (and may even try to negotiate with the employer to reduce the salary)
    - austenallred 9y ago
      I suppose that's a risk we have to take, though being willing to forgo $10k of income for two years ($20k) in order to avoid paying $20k seems a little silly; all you'd gain are the taxes, but you'd also have a hard time getting a raise, etc.
      - JavaOffScript 9y ago
        Unless they form a contract with their employers saying they will take 49,999 for 2 years with a guaranteed raise to 60k at the end. Employer saves money, employee saves money, school gets screwed...
        austenallred 9y ago
        If that's how you want to optimize your life, congratulations. You cheated the school that gave you a chance out of a few thousand dollars. Might be smarter to just get paid more :)
        brlewis 9y ago
        The way I read it you collect 17% once they start earning $50k+. Do you really collect nothing if their first two years are below?
        austenallred 9y ago
- sigstoat 9y ago
  i'm not affiliated, but like this model. > How do you know that your graduates are or aren't making more than 50k? How do you know that you're getting your 17%? you can ask students to fill out and sign, as a condition of admission, forms authorizing the IRS to hand over their tax returns, in advance. it wouldn't be very hard to contract with a law firm to take the results and check to see if they had more than 50k of income, while ignoring/discarding all other information. or just have them sign a thing saying they'll do X. if they lie, they're probably committing fraud. most folks don't run around committing high dollar fraud. > Aside from that, you're essentially giving your students a loan and then having them repay it once they start earning money. How is this any different than a regular student loan (but with way more risk on your end)? the point of this model is to lower risk for the student, and hope that the value you're providing is sufficient to offset the additional risk you're accepting.
  - busterarm 9y ago
    This is essentially the same was what AppAcademy does, though they don't offer this to everyone across the board anymore (some groups have to prepay in full).
    - austenallred 9y ago
      Also we're 100% online, so people don't have to move to San Francisco for 3+ months.
    - sunjieming 9y ago
      Yeah, it's a similar idea with a few differences. Lambda School is six months long, online, and teaches CS fundamentals (computer architecture, operating systems, C++) in addition to full-stack web development and mobile development. Lambda School also doesn't require a deposit.
  - sant_176 9y ago
    Could you please tell me whether its applicable in India or any other counties or not?
omalleyt 9y ago
Brilliant, I've long thought that all universities should run under this model (although when applied to the humanities I can hear in my head the 3000 years of the land owning, non-laboring intelligentsia protesting about the noble virtues of an education uncorrupted by the banalities of productive yada yada...) But anyway back to CS. 1) Risk is pooled in the institution rather than distributed amongst the students, which is the textbook way to deal with uncorrelated risk. 2) The incentive of the university and the student are aligned as much as possible 3) By putting costs and benefits into a form with equal time horizons, disadvantaged students no longer need to rely on the generosity of governments or private lenders for upfront cash. The only thing I'd always questioned was whether such a scheme as described above could pass legal muster, as it bears a resemblance to involuntary servitude, as well as requiring access to income statements. I've never heard of anyone but the govt placing liens on income. I'm hoping a workaround has been found, because from a strictly incentive based analogy, this model has the potential to do to modern education what patent law did to manufacturing
- nickwalter 9y ago
  What did patent law do to manufacturing?
- austenallred 9y ago
  Amen :) > The only thing I'd always questioned was whether such a scheme as described above could pass legal muster Income share agreements are all-but blessed, at least in the US, and in Australia they pretty closely mirror how most student loans work. > It bears a resemblance to involuntary servitude The concerns of indentured servitude go away when you realize each student can live or work or do whatever they'd like, they willingly enter into the agreement, etc. We obviously want them to get a high-paying job, and it's in both of our best interests for them to do so.
  - omalleyt 9y ago
    Awesome, that's great to hear. And I completely agree with your last paragraph, my concern (without knowing the relevant laws) was always just what a judge would hear. Really glad to see someone doing this
wanghq 9y ago
Why call it Lambda?
- austenallred 9y ago
  Originally we only taught functional programming (Haskell), but as we moved more commonly-used languages we kept the name. At times I regret that, but I like the name.
- wmf 9y ago
  Why call a VC fund Y Combinator? People love borrowing random CS terms for company names.
nxc18 9y ago
This is very interesting and I like the finance model a lot. I'd be curious to see more details on the syllabus, however. I also have questions about the quality of instruction. There are some big name institutions listed, but that doesn't necessarily indicate quality instruction. The best researchers are often emphatically not the best instructors, and for this venture instructors are much more important. I sincerely hope this is successful; perhaps this can prompt traditional institutions to be more innovative (in delivery, instruction, finance, all of it).
- austenallred 9y ago
  > The best researchers are often emphatically not the best instructors, and for this venture instructors are much more important. This is very true. Most of our instructors are refugees from an academic world; they really just want to teach, and research for them was a necessary evil. We have a pretty rigorous hiring process (and we're hiring now! careers@lambdaschool.com) >I'd be interested to see more on the syllabus What would you like to see?
  - 0xffff2 9y ago
    >What would you like to see? Not OP, but I think your "syllabus" is seriously lacking in detail. For example, you have a week and a half of "operating systems" That is summarized as 4 bullet points. I would really expect to see at least a paragraph under each of the three sections describing exactly what a student should understand after completing each module. For the operating systems section, I would like to see something like this for the first half of week 19: |Operating Systems II |After completing this section, students should be able to describe the various levels of memory used by modern computers, including CPU caches, RAM and swap space. Students should understand how each of these levels of memory are used during program execution. Additionally, students should understand how memory is addressed, including physical and virtual addressing, how memory is managed and allocated by the operating system, and how memory may be shared by multiple processes on the same system.
    - austenallred 9y ago
icpmacdo 9y ago
Is the content your teaching currently openly available or are there plans to make it available in the future?
- austenallred 9y ago
  We have no immediate plans to do that, but honestly finding content isn't the hard part of learning for most people; there are some pretty great resources out there for free.
sant_176 9y ago
Could you please tell me whether its applicable in India or any other counties or not?
supernumerary 9y ago
Recurse Center 2.0 ...
- austenallred 9y ago
  Eh, kind of. We're a structured class with people teaching you full-time.
dfabulich 9y ago
IMO, the cost of living is the core problem with CS education programs like this. It's always been possible to teach yourself to code for free if you have a computer, Internet, and 40 hours a week to spend on practice. But who can afford to do that? What these programs need most of all are cheap dormitories that offer room and board. (Close proximity to students can also help provide one another with a support network.)
- austenallred 9y ago
  > What these programs need most of all are cheap dormitories that offer room/board. That's also true, but it's much more easily for someone to find a place to crash for six months than to come up with $10k out-of-pocket. Eventually we'll be able to provide a stipend for living expenses and/or dormitory style living as well, but for now it is what it is.
  - dfabulich 9y ago
    A studio apartment in Oakland is $1,500 a month. There are already a bunch of great free resources to learn to code, including Codecademy, Coursera, Khan Academy, MIT OpenCourseware, and freeCodeCamp. Right now, the people who need to learn to code need room and board, not yet another free coding school.
    - austenallred 9y ago
      First, why live in Oakland? A lot of our students move to more friendly environments (read: cheaper) during that time. There are a lot of great resources, no doubt, but those don't really compare to an in-person experience with an instructor and a school incentivized to take you all the way to hired.
    - MarkMc 9y ago
      The difference is that with Khan Academy, Coursera etc. you need self discipline. With Lambda you have a coach who expects you to be at your computer at 9am every weekday, and who has a strong financial incentive to ensure you learn. Plus in time a Lambda qualification may become more respected by employers than a Coursera degree.
wonderous 9y ago
Have you run across any prior business that trade education for a percentage of future income? Ask since I've looked at this model before and while I'm not able to find it, I recall court cases that ruled against this type of finical agreement.
- austenallred 9y ago
  Yeah, even Purdue University uses income share agreements, it's not widespread but it's not rare either.
- sylvainkalache 9y ago
  Holberton School is also using this model since we announced in 2015. We are working with VEMO http://vemo.com/ISAinitiative/ http://vemo.com/ISAinitiative/ they are specialized in ISA - most schools are using them.
- jvrossb 9y ago
  Make School (also YC, W12), has offered income based repayment since 2014 for our college program www.makeschool.com/product-college. There are now 3 cohorts of students who have gotten jobs and paid us under this model and a 4th is entering this fall.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
leeronisrael 9y ago
CC: Treehouse Seems equivalent to their "tech degree" which costs $199/mo
- sunjieming 9y ago
  Well, self-paced options typically have very low graduation rates. It's hard to compare a self-paced online course to something that's live, full-time and >40 hours a week with instructors, TAs, etc.
smaps 9y ago
Any potential for time changes in the future? I'm on EST and being in a class M-F 12p-9p is a bit harsh.
- austenallred 9y ago
  We're always trying to figure that out, but it's the time that (barely) works for all parties
hysan 9y ago
Out of curiosity, I signed up for the JavaScript Mini Code Bootcamp - Archive to evaluate the quality of the lectures. I've been watching/listening to the first 20+ min and so far, I'm quite skeptical of the quality of the instruction. Are the archives some sort of practice run or are they reminiscent of the actual lectures?
- austenallred 9y ago
  That's where we test new instructors. It's a class taught to thousands of people at once, so very, very different.
  - hysan 9y ago
    I see. Thanks for answering that. If you don't mind, I have some follow-up questions then (since I'm considering doing this as a way to get back into a programming career and possibly recommending this to a friend's friend who has been looking for a bootcamp to change careers): * What is the style for the actual lectures? * Are you using any tools aside from screencasting and chat to supplement the lectures? * Your courses are listed as full time, 9-6 affairs. What is the typical schedule over the course of the day? * Is there any room in the course/syllabus for the instructors to help students with questions about related topics not included in the syllabus? For example, a quick glance shows that you cover React Native's ListView but I see no mention of the newer FlatList or SectionList. * Related, do you discuss why certain tools are chosen to be taught over others? And how to choose a library to use when presented with several seemingly similar options? For example, XMLHttpRequest vs fetch vs SuperAgent vs etc. vs your choice of axios. Same with react-navigation over other libraries. People unfamiliar with the field will undoubtedly hear about these other libraries or even get asked about them, so I'm a bit concerned about recommending this to someone without any background in programming at all.
    - austenallred 9y ago
      I hope you'll forgive me that it'll take a minute to get to these questions.
artur_makly 9y ago
Bravo! This is overdue. Back in the early 80's my dad ( a chess teacher from Odessa ) immigrated to NYC ( with just $150 ). My mom worked 3 jobs to put him through Yeshiva Uni where he learned Cobol, JCL, and Fortran. He ended up getting hired right away by Lehman Bros, and realized he was sitting on a gold-mine. Tons of well-educated immigrants were coming onto the golden-paved shores, with 0 knowledge of computer programming. So we upgraded our family 1.5 bdrm apt in Jackson Heights, Queens, to a modest 3 bedroom tower apt in Forest Hills, where he proceeded to lecture evening and weekend classes by the droves.. (all on 1 white board!) * my job ( i was 13 at the time ) was to serve everyone instant coffee and bagels. One day I was curious and asked him “Dad, these folks can barely speak english.. how are they going to even pass their interviews?” — he looked up from his hand-drawn spreadsheet he kept a strict record of students..”Oh that part is easy… I already know all their future managers” — It was the perfect funnel. best of luck fellas!
- austenallred 9y ago
  What a great story. As someone who lived near Odessa for some time, thank you!
- wyclif 9y ago
  Fascinating story; why don't you write this up long-form and submit it here to HN?
  - artur_makly 9y ago
    yeah there is much to say! (good and bad) Alas running a digital studio, a startup, and being a father to a wild 5yr old boy has produced few disposable hours(sigh) ..however weekly Medium posts is something i've been meaning to do...especially as im living abroad. thanks for the encouragement.
- pvsukale3 9y ago
  Write it in an article.
- j_s 9y ago
  This sounds like the perfect opportunity for a documentary project, well beyond just a write-up. What an awesome example to be so close to!
webwanderings 9y ago
I was curious about the type of students you'd want to recruit. The type you're featuring all seems to be out of college and have experience under their belt. Your schedule is full day learning. So now I wonder: are you targeting people who are out of jobs? It seems a little confusing to understand your criteria of recruiting students (I have not paid too much attention yet).
- jansho 9y ago
  Ah I forgot about the full week schedule (my post was also about your first question). I'm also curious about how the programme is structured on a typical day. For me personally, if there is a part time option (4 days a week even) this would be hugely attractive.
- austenallred 9y ago
  There's not a "type" we're looking for; some of our best students barely finished high school, let alone college. Our schedule is full-time just because we're looking for people that are dedicated. We're working on part-time, but have to be more careful with that, as it would be about a year long.
  - webwanderings 9y ago
    But how would a person in high school dedicate full time learning 'how to program'? That seems impossible. The same goes for full time college student. Let's say I think I am dedicated (I know you'll have your own criteria on identifying my dedication). Say that I am in high school. How do you expect me to study during your defined hours full time? The best I could think of is dedicating my full time hours during summer vacation (if I have to let go of my part time job, camps, or home-work - testing, AP etc). The same would apply when I am in college trying to get a degree. In addition, I also don't see how any full time working individual could find time to accommodate learning schedule during the day. Say that I may be looking to change career.
    - jansho 9y ago
      I think the concept is awesome and I hope that my comment won't be taken as cynical: I get the dedication part but some people may have commitments that they can't avoid at all - childcare, for example. Having commitments shouldn't be confused with lacking dedication, IMO. For me, the biggest USP about a remote school, or any MOOC really, is the flexibility that it offers. Structured, yes, but 3-5 hours a day would be more manageable than 9-5 five days a week. That will probably add extra months to the course though - but that's OK, a Masters takes 1-2 years for comparison. Of course Lambda instructors are world-class, but technically you can train yourself; there are very good guides signposting to free resources, and online communities for support. It might not be to the level of depth that the Lambda course offers, but is indepth knowledge really a key employability trait? (I'm not questioning the value of knowledge.) After all, many recruiters now emphasise on having a good portfolio over a certificate. But hey this is more like a feedback than a criticism. I sincerely think that this concept is super and hope that the Academy succeeds :)
balls187 9y ago
How will you prevent this from becoming predatory as pressure for improving the bottom line mounts? It feels like a very fine line between altruism and taking advantage of ignorance.
- austenallred 9y ago
  I'm not sure how to answer that question; if you are giving people a job it's hard to be too predatory so long as you charge reasonable rates. We simply try to be honest and fair up-front.
  - balls187 9y ago
    > so long as you charge reasonable rates. We simply try to be honest and fair up-front. And what is your plan to prevent you from changing your terms later?
    - austenallred 9y ago
      You sign an agreement.
- sattoshi 9y ago
  How exactly is this taking advantage of anybody?
  - balls187 9y ago
    The exact terms aren't disclosed, and what is disclosed is too open ended. This is what I could get from their website. https://lambdaschool.com/about https://lambdaschool.com/about > Attending Lambda School is completely free up-front, and students pay back a portion of their income after they find a high-paying job. > If, for some reason, a student is unable to find a job with a salary above the set threshold, they are not required to pay anything. The total amount of repayment is also capped at a pre-determined maximum amount. How long is the statute of limitations before I no longer have to pay? What if I am unable to get a job, and then later do a paid-for program that does land a job? What if I get a job as in QA, Program/Product Management? What will stop you from changing your terms mid-course and require me to accept new terms before finishing?
jansho 9y ago
What's the application criteria like? I notice that the current students listed in the website all have some sort of technical/reputable background (one even had an MS in Computer Science already!) Does this mean that the computer science course is not for complete beginners? I also noticed a mini web dev bootcamp, when will this be launched? Thanks :)
- austenallred 9y ago
  The application criteria is pretty much that we can only accept n% of students (currently it's a little less than 3%), so those are the most "credentialed" students, but probably not representative. It's vague, but what we really look for is dedication and a love for programming itself (as opposed to wanting to make more money), which exhibits itself in a variety of ways. We hope to move to a model soon where as long as you complete code challenge x, you're enrolled, but we're not there.
jeron 9y ago
What are the differences between this and Make School?
- austenallred 9y ago
  A lot of things. We're online-only, focus on CS not building apps, 6 months long (vs 2 yrs), a bit less expensive, and generally speaking target different markets. I don't have anything bad to say about Make School. Have never met them, but they seem like they're doing a fine job!
  - jvrossb 9y ago
    Hey Austen - we should meet! We have a 4 term sequence of CS courses that cover most if not all the topics listed on your curriculum page. These topics are also touched upon and put to practice in our mobile, web, and to some extent our data science courses. It's only our Summer Academy which caters to students enrolled at others schools on summer vacation which focuses on app or VR development.
    - austenallred 9y ago
      Cool. Ya we should meet sometime.
Seylerius 9y ago
This is an awesome idea. What I'd really like to know, however, is if any of the existing loan options will accept this as schooling in order to loan a student money for living expenses. Some students already have a family, and thus they cannot crash at a flophouse.
- austenallred 9y ago
  It likely depends on who you talk to. We probably don't have a long enough of a history for most, but eventually housing is something we'd like to have a fund for ourselves.
haskellandchill 9y ago
Awesome, I'd love to be running something like this IRL with room and board like another commenter mentioned. Will settle for being a hiring partner :)
- austenallred 9y ago
  Room and board is something we're working on.
veb 9y ago
This is definitely one of the more interesting ideas/launches that I've seen on HN recently, congrats! I'll definitely be following you guys to see what you get up to.
- austenallred 9y ago
  Thanks!
maxxxxx 9y ago
That's how public education should work in my view. Repay a certain percentage of your income for a certain amount of time.
- brewdad 9y ago
  We use property values as a proxy for income. It is by no means a perfect substitute, but it seems to work ok. The primary drawback being that wealthier districts can raise more money than poorer ones. This would still be an issue if we used income directly though.
literallycancer 9y ago
Here's an idea: go live in a cheaper country, pay couple grand for the whole degree. No one will have heard of the school, but that's the case anyway unless you go to the few top US schools.
francogt 9y ago
Do you accept or plan on accepting international students?
- austenallred 9y ago
  Working on it. It comes with a lot of complications.
francogt 9y ago
I remember the Functional Programming course you guys taught. Any chance of putting that course in the "Free Course Archives" :)
- austenallred 9y ago
  Sure :)
bearcobra 9y ago
Do you plan on accepting students from outside the US, and if so how does that change your model?
- austenallred 9y ago
  We will open in the EU and Canada soon.
  - tu7001 9y ago
    Hm... EU, Great Britain is still in the EU, but will not be soon; are you going to accept from there?
bambataa 9y ago
I think this is an excellent idea. There definitely is a gap in the market for non-CS grads who want to get a more robust grounding than a ten-week bootcamp can offer. I'm interested in how you select applicants but your website doesn't let me look at the application process. Your funding model means selecting the right students is crucial as you carry the risk. How do you select from the candidates? Are they meant to be already quite experienced? I looked through the curriculum and it seems very intense even for someone with a bit of coding experience. How do you make sure people keep up the pace?
- austenallred 9y ago
  We keep that kind of close to the chest. We have pre course work for applicants to complete, and let's say we can learn a lot from that.
bipbip 9y ago
Looks very similar to Holberton School - https://www.holbertonschool.com/ https://www.holbertonschool.com/ - launched 2 years ago, it's also 17% after students get a job. Their curriculum covers low-level programming, high-level programming and system engineering. They have a pretty good track record so far, students finding opportunities at NASA, LinkedIn, Apple, Dropbox, Docker.
- austenallred 9y ago
  Ya, holberton is solid. It would be difficult or impossible for most of our students to move to San Francisco unpaid for two years.
  - bipbip 9y ago
    They get paid pretty fast though at Holberton, as they start their first internship after 6 months in.
    - austenallred 9y ago
      Ya I've got nothing against Holberton, it's just not a model that works for the vast majority of our students.
- 0xffff2 9y ago
  >They have a pretty good track record so far, students finding opportunities at NASA, LinkedIn, Apple, Dropbox, Docker. Where are you getting that information? NASA is doing very little direct hiring right now, certainly not hiring software engineers without a bachelors degree. It's entirely possible to get hired as a contractor working at NASA, but that's really not the same thing.
sethbannon 9y ago
How is this different than Make School's model (also a YC company)? I understand they've been doing this for some time, and even offer a stipend to people who are accepted in the program to help pay for housing and other costs. https://www.makeschool.com/product-college/admissions#tuition https://www.makeschool.com/product-college/admissions#tuitio...
- austenallred 9y ago
  A full ISA from Make School would cost you approximately $90,000, and would require you to move to San Francisco for 2+ years. Nothing against Make School, we're just going after a very different market.
jrs95 9y ago
I really hope this model ends up growing beyond CS and into other fields as well. The traditional 4 year university model could definitely use the competition.
- austenallred 9y ago
  We're launching other programs soon, starting with AI/Machine Learning, bioinformatics, and data science. We plan on becoming a full blown university at some point.
bored 9y ago
Do you offer opportunities for existing programmers who are looking to improve their skills with the goal of getting a higher programmer salary?
- austenallred 9y ago
  We're working on that. Not yet, probably three months out.
  - bored 9y ago
    Would the commission be less?
    - austenallred 9y ago
      Would probably have to be. Our risk is much less.
  - RUG3Y 9y ago
    If you have a solution to this problem, I'd be extremely interested.
dragonfax 9y ago
This isn't new. And with schools like this, they say "good job" or tech job, but they mean "any job" (that pays over 50k). I've had friends screwed by this before. If you can't get hired because you went to a "dev bootcamp" or just aren't good enough with code after spending all that time in school, they'll come after your for that car mechanic pay check.
- austenallred 9y ago
  That's simply not true
  - ztratar 9y ago
    Actually it is. https://www.appacademy.io/ https://www.appacademy.io/
    - austenallred 9y ago
      I was referring to the part about us taking a percentage if you're not working as an engineer. Of course there are other schools that use income share agreements.
      - lquist 9y ago
        Afaik App Academy only collects for software engineering jobs.
sureste 9y ago
Anyone can help me with a question I have? What if I want to take this program from outside of the USA and want to work remotely? Would this count as working in the USA? (Which is one of the questions on the form)
- austenallred 9y ago
  No, it's almost impossible for us to guarantee that kind of a job.
r0brodz 9y ago
Im 32 and have 4 kids. I would love to excel at this program and reach high coding experience. I really am struggling economicly.
- austenallred 9y ago
  Apply!
  - r0brodz 9y ago
    Wish I could. I work full time at 12 bucks per hr as a pipefitter helper. I so wish we had basic income or some kind of help so I could do thid. There is nothing more in this planet I want most is to be a computer scientist.
sergiotapia 9y ago
Do you take older people >50 years old with zero programming experience? I want to forward this to someone.
- austenallred 9y ago
  Yes!
  - byproxy 9y ago
    That's cool, but isn't there an inherent ageism in the industry that would prevent someone of that vintage from getting a job? Especially without a broad resume.. I'm all for the idea of older folk getting tech jobs (I'd like to be one myself, someday), but it seems like a larger risk on your part.
    - austenallred 9y ago
      There may be some ageism, but there are enough employers that don't care that we're more than OK to take that risk.
ajdkjafklds 9y ago
I'm a bit confused why you're teaching JavaScript and C++. It would seem like those are geared toward different types of jobs. Also I've heard that other schools stopped two languages as it's too difficult to get people without prior experience to programming to learn two languages in such a short time period.
omot 9y ago
I'm kind of nervous that there's a lack of discrete math in the courses listed. I believe it's a fundamental requirement to gain understanding of the underlying intuition behind a lot of CS.
RUG3Y 9y ago
I need the education but I already have a job. Two years ago, I would have jumped into this feet first.
gigatexal 9y ago
Hmm kudos. I’ll have to look into this.
SimianLogic2 9y ago
I've thought a bit about how you would structure something like this as a pro-bono service instead of a paid service. The thing I always struggle with is how to get people who currently lack the basic computer skills, math, and logic skills and get them to the point where they could benefit from a bootcamp. Most people I know who've made it through a bootcamp successfully already had some sort of exposure to coding before starting. You'd almost need a skills camp before the bootcamp that would be less choosy and take the top 20-30% of those students into a further bootcamp... but at that point the economics start to break down (why it'd likely need to be pro-bono). Anyway, that was a big tangent! I think what you're doing is interesting. Do you have a twitter account set up if we're interested in following along?
vimarshk 9y ago
Great idea. Great business model. I think the issue will be for the engineers who graduate to get over the bias that software companies have today over hiring from a code bootcamp/code school.
- austenallred 9y ago
  Yeah, we hope to be the antidote to that and create our own brand.
jplank1983 9y ago
What happens if I complete the curriculum and then decide to seek employment in a different field? Do I still pay?
mediocrejoker 9y ago
It's too bad this is US only.
keithnz 9y ago
I feel it's misleading, it's naming feels like its coat tailing off implying something like a university comp sci degree ( with a practical bent), and this seems more of a React web/mobile app design course with a bit of C++ and some basic algorithms ( presumably so they can pass interviews that seem to be obsessed with such things ) $30k seems steep, and while 0 $ upfront is appealing, that kind of strategy can be exploitative( like 0% deposit financing ). It can be super appealing to someone who doesn't have much money, but they end up paying a lot more than they really should be. Not saying this is bad (maybe it's good thing), but when look through it, I'm getting alarm bells.
- GuiA 9y ago
  17% is huge, particularly when you consider it within the context of after tax income. $100k salary is $60k or so after taxes in California; take away $17k + rent and food, and you're getting pretty close to paycheck to paycheck living, particularly if the person has loans from a failed college attempt, medical expenses, etc. They're essentially asking for $30-$60k or so - which is more than in state tuition for a bachelor's degree in many states. The difference is that a BSc is still widely recognized and accepted and will still be in 10 years (despite what many HNers would like to think), unlike this program, which most certainly won't even exist anymore.
  - austenallred 9y ago
    Repayment is capped at $30k max, so the most we could possibly take is $30,000.
    - GuiA 9y ago
      Original posting is ambiguous on whether the $30k cap is yearly, or for the whole duration. Thanks for the correction.
  - bb611 9y ago
    I lived (well) in San Jose on <$65,000 pre-tax for 4 years, including picking up a degree at nights to the tune of $20K. I agree that it is some financial challenge, but it is nowhere near as dire as "paycheck to paycheck." I agree with your larger point that a bachelor's degree is a better value, especially over the long term. Unfortunately a BS is going to take longer to get, especially in CA, where the education pipeline is overflowing and underfunded (but still very good value for money).
dlet 9y ago
Love the concept! What about the people who want to freelance after the program? What will be the fees for them?
- austenallred 9y ago
  The same! It's income-based regardless of where you work.
Humphrey 9y ago
Australia has the best of all of this already to study at any Australian University! - Depending on your social-economic background, The government pays you a cost-of-living income [1], - pays your university fees [2] which are tiny compared to US fees, - and you repay back 4%/year once your have an income > than approx A$55,000. 17% looks very painful in comparison! Of cause, you need to be an Australian, so it probably doesn't help most of you! [1] Depending on your Probably actually less than cost of living, so most students also work a day or more a week while studying. [2] They cover the university fees -- You still need to pay for books, and other similar expenses up front.
- usegolang 9y ago
  4% a year for how long and what's the cap? What if you never get a job? Any other restrictions? Ps - forgive my shortness I'm on mobile.
  - justonepost 9y ago
    Yesh, how many years?? Two years is nothing.
  - notoriousjpg 9y ago
    4% until you pay it off. The "interest" on your loan is pegged at inflation. If you never get a job you never pay it back. This is actually a problem for the gov, where older students study but never find a job in their field. Great scheme overall though.
corporateslave2 9y ago
Services like this will flood the job market. I wish I could get out of engineering
- austenallred 9y ago
  There's a service called college that millions of people begin each year. We'll barely be a drop in the bucket. The demand for engineers is growing rapidly. You'll be just fine.
  - corporateslave2 9y ago
    Right but this is zero upfront cost. Kudos to you guys if it works out
    - wyclif 9y ago
      If you love barriers to entry for others so much, you should go into a licensed profession like real estate or dentistry.
arikrak 9y ago
Nice to offer a pay-it-later approach (like App Academy) but seems a bit expensive for an online course?
- austenallred 9y ago
  The expense of these courses is instructors, regardless of where the course is held.
minikomi 9y ago
For those outside of the US take note: Just a note: We are currently unable to offer income-based repayment outside of the United States. You can still attend Lambda School, but you would have to pay at least $10,000 up-front
- ryan-allen 9y ago
  Ouch, and 17% seems quite steep? Hm. It might be cheaper compared to a student loan in the USA, but in Australia, you can attend university and get a degree for roughly that cost (or cheaper, from what I understand).
- ekevjn 9y ago
  Do you have plan to support student outside us so they will have a change to get remote job or even full-time job?
drumttocs8 9y ago
What if the student decides to use those skills to create their own startup, instead of getting a regular job? How would you get paid?
- austenallred 9y ago
  We still take a percentage of income. So we'll be rooting for you!
adrianmui 9y ago
Viking Code School grad here. Really happy more institutions are implementing this method. I didn't have to take loans to start my journey in Full Stack development. It's been the best decision of my life.
uniclaude 9y ago
Amazing! I'm pleased to see that there are startups out here trying to solve this type of problems. Taking the risk is ballsy and should be rewarded! Questions! - Do you plan to extend the syllabus to something more fundamental? Asking because you have some C++ and already go further than bootcamps, so I'm wondering if you intend to pursue this direction and get closer to a formal CS education. - Do you plan to work on giving some sort of degrees later? Some countries require degrees for immigration, which is a door that bootcamps do not open. By offering degrees, you open the global market to your students, and in an increasingly connected world, it can make a huge difference. I basically owe my quality of life to the mobility I got thanks to my degree, and this is something I wish to everyone. Massive Kudos to you guys! I hope you will eventually offer the same service to students outside of the US. The market is large.
- austenallred 9y ago
  1. We think we're already covering a lot of the fundamentals. We're not all the way yet, but we're within striking distance of a CS degree. 2. To give a "degree" you have to be accredited, which brings all sorts of ridiculous rules along with it that don't really make sense. So yes, but we're not ready to jump through those hoops yet.
all_blue_chucks 9y ago
Can you fail out of this program? If not, the degree is worthless. If so, the program wastes all the money it spent educating you. The incentives at play here seem a bit out of whack...
- austenallred 9y ago
  Of course you can fail out. We have to build that into our risk model.
austinlyons 9y ago
Who are the founders?
beilabs 9y ago
I'm going to play devils advocate here. I don't think I'd be in your target market primarily because I feel for 15k a year I can achieve a decent education just by online resources alone. It would be just as well recognized; I'd even think that a local community college could be cheaper. Granted, upfront cash is a luxury that few without the bank of mom and dad can access. An Irish degree costs 3000 euros a year to enroll. Even for four years that would be cheaper than what's on offer here with a world wide recognized qualification. On the whole, it seems like a very American solution to an American problem, education is just far too expensive in the states. * I'm a beneficiary of free state education from Ireland. Best of luck in the effort, I do applaud you for it especially in the US where there are always tech shortages but...I really wish your country was in a place where your type of business didn't have to exist. A country where only those who can afford to be educated can receive education. I'm saying this as someone living in Nepal where those who can't pay can't learn either. I really wish education was subsidized, worldwide! Alas, never going to happen.
- austenallred 9y ago
  Indeed, it is difficult to compete with the price of a fully subsidized education. That said, we still have students from the EU that attend Lambda School. It's not all about cost, it's also about use of time. You can get a degree that is more well recognized in four years, or you can attend Lambda School and work for three years. Would you rather hire someone with an official degree from a community college or someone that attended a CS Academy and worked for three years? You could argue either way, but it's not clear to me that the degree is the clear winner.
  - beilabs 9y ago
    I'm curious how your students in Europe will agree to return the % of salary back to you. I would imagine there would be more restrictions in that regard than with the IRS. In Ireland even a degree in CS from the worst school guarantees a base of education that has been reviewed and agreed upon. I'm unaware if the same vigilance has been applied in your own curriculum. Also, please remember that degrees are necessary should one wish to migrate internationally in many situations so don't discount them out of hand. Personally, I'd hire the person with the degree before any bootcamp on its own. That said, I believe that most degrees are useless without real world knowledge and application. I've hired 10 staff over the past 12 months from a variety of backgrounds, some with MSc level, others who have barely scraped through their B.Sc. Qualifications means competence at school, doesn't always equal to success in the software engineering field.
b34r 9y ago
I applaud that you aren’t charging a base tuition in addition to your income-based repayment. 30k for a useful education, job placement assistance, and community is worth it.
iomotoko 9y ago
In the registration process: Are you legally authorized to work in the United States? Just a note: We are currently unable to offer income-based repayment outside of the United States. You can still attend Lambda School, but you would have to pay at least $10,000 up-front $10,000 - that's about as expensive as a high quality bachelor's degree (in Germany) at private university via distance learning, where someone can pay flexibly btw. Additionally: We are talking about 6 semesters worth of material and study, study time can be extended for free. What you are offering is a 6-month crash course where someone will have _NO_ degree whatsoever afterwards. I also doubt how much computer science you can teach in that time. Normal CS curriculum spends about one module (one semester's worth) on just the introduction to programming, has probably 2 modules (that you would do in 2 semesters) of computer science basics like computer architecture et cetera... there are so many good resources already available, including lectures of incredibly professors from some of the greatest universities. Also: You have to create the learning resources once and can take on as many students as you want w/out any additional cost, great for you, seems like selling snake oil to me. I am unsure besides the resources and apparently online group working ("group work happens live and interactive") what it is you provide for possibly 30k$ in cash? 1 success finances the cost you have w/ an incredible amount of failures, and it's not clear to me if that one guy finding a job will have done so bc of your awesome curriculum and support? It seems to me like anyone who can possibly finance proper education some other way should (and I want to repeat: it's a 6-months crash course, not a degree)
- tedmiston 9y ago
  Germany is an outlier in higher education. In the US, $10k is lucky to get you 1 year of in-state tuition and books (excluding room and board) at an average public state school with a CS program. If you go to college in a state different than what you live in, the rates are even higher.
  - iomotoko 9y ago
    I am quite aware that the situation might be different, I still consider most of my points valid for the US though, for example regarding quality of education provided + that the business seems a little bit "shady" to me. btw: a degree from the University of London (via distance learning, can be done from many parts of the world) is about ~5000£ (~6482$) - again we are talking about flexible payment + great study resources (6 semester's worth) + a full bachelor's degree! This however seems (to me) w/ all due respect like a "get rich quick" scheme that won't work for 99% of people. And the other 1% would have probably made it some other way and are possibly paying 30k$ for it (and I want to stress again: 30k$ for a 6 month crash course with _no_ degree in the end)
rajacombinator 9y ago
Mixed feelings ... 50k/yr hardly sounds like a successful placement for a semi competent programmer, more like a pipeline to the gulag in a profession that's notoriously bad at obtaining fair wages. (I presume OP will be teaching the segment on living in your car in Palo Alto ... ;p ) However, I've always been curious about this business model for schools and hope it succeeds!
- austenallred 9y ago
  The number is $50k because of folks in smaller/more rural areas. There $50k can be quite a lot.
  - jhall1468 9y ago
    Yes it can, which is why using a flat pretax minimum is absolutely silly. $50k in Seattle isn't living confortably, but with your cut it's $41.5k. That's less than a bank teller makes. You should have a COL adjusted minimum. Otherwise you'll only be targeting rural areas where most jobs aren't.
    - austenallred 9y ago
      Ya, we could, that just gets complicated really fast
segmondy 9y ago
How long does the student have to wait before getting a job to void the agreement? What if a student takes the class, can't get a job, then spends 6 months of their own time on MOOC and gets a job should they still pay 17%?
txttran 9y ago
Let's say I make $60k a year now in an unrelated field and I join your school, but after graduating, I was unable to find a job in software. Would I still be on the hook to pay you 17% of my income despite not landing a programming job?
- austenallred 9y ago
  No, you'd never pay us a dime.
grondilu 9y ago
So basically it's a student loan with a friendly debt collection policy?
- austenallred 9y ago
  I don't know of a student loan that disappears if you don't get a job that pays more than $50,000/yr
  - grondilu 9y ago
    Now you do.
    - austenallred 9y ago
      Ha!
richardgill88 9y ago
This is great! I've trained 3 people to code using a similar meta-course I built. It's more of an apprenticeship scheme (they work for me once they get good enough). https://github.com/z-dev/learn-programming https://github.com/z-dev/learn-programming From that experience I think this idea could do well. I think no-win-no-fee education like this will be popular. I also think that a scheme like this could do a lot of social good and help people who might not want to go to University. Good luck :)
eps 9y ago
Not getting a job is one risk. Loosing the interest in CS is another. I know a fellow who was very much "into computers," decided to become a programmer, signed up for the (offline) classes and then had massive troubles trying to understand how a do-while construct works. He was in mid-20s back when it happened, spoke 3 languages and had a day job as a nurse. He did finish the course, got his grades, but ultimatley lost all the interest and never got into IT.
rovek 9y ago
> We train people to become software engineers, and we charge nothing until a student gets a software job that pays more than $50k/yr. At that point we take 17% of income for two years (capped at a maximum of $30k total). This is similar to how all university tuition fees in the UK work, with slightly different numbers. A very sensible solution to the astronomical cost of education, provided people want to get jobs. In the current UK scheme you pay 9% of the amount you earn over £21,000, or nothing while you earn less than that. Debt written off after something like 25 years if unpaid.
qwer7y 9y ago
This is awesome!
pw 9y ago
'austenallred is a cool individual, and this seems like it could be a particularly good take on the code school model, but I always wonder if programs like this help on the margin. That is, do they help people succeed (i.e. get a job in software) who otherwise wouldn't, or do they just accelerate the success of those who would, one way or another, eventually succeeded regardless of their participation in the program? I think the latter might be likely simply just because for good programs (like this one) demand far outstrips supply, so they can be extremely picky about who they accept and only accept individuals who are destined to succeed. Not that accelerating the success of those destined to succeed is in any way a bad thing (it is, undoubtedly, a good thing, and can certainly make for a good business), but my interest is much more in helping those succeed who otherwise wouldn't. That seems like a much harder challenge and one that can have more interesting ramifications for things like social mobility and income inequality.
- MarkMc 9y ago
  > demand far outstrips supply, so they can be extremely picky about who they accept and only accept individuals who are destined to succeed The same criticism has been applied to top-tier universities such as Harvard: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/who-needs-harvard/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/who-needs-harvard/
  - heedlessly 9y ago
    Don't use Harvard as a parallel in your argument with Lambda. It just comes off very silly. Not too mention that the Harvard student body typically come from parents with a disproportionate amount of wealth relative to the general population. Their parents were alumni/donors or influential in some type of way. Not to mention, they could afford ACT/SAT tutors for their sons/daughters. So I advise everyone in this thread to to take what you just said with a grain of salt. This was a false equivalency.
j_s 9y ago
Austen, this is going a bit meta but why launch at ~4pm Eastern time instead of 8am? The post has done pretty well anyway - glad to see you hitting the big-time!
- austenallred 9y ago
  When you launch in YC you do so in coordination with the HN team. WE weren't scheduled for today, but another company was unresponsive so we stole the (late) spot.
patwalls 9y ago
App Academy has the same business model in SF and NY. I went there along with thousands of others. Cool that this is online though.
sailfast 9y ago
I like that this model has become available and wish you luck! Always good to have options for getting this education. One pedantic but perhaps important nit to pick: I would not recommend the language "especially if you come from a lower-class background". Lower income, reduced opportunity, lower education, etc but lower class reads like you're coming from a position of privilege that looks down on potential students.
- austenallred 9y ago
  Good point, thanks!
kareemsabri 9y ago
Looking for any instructors/TAs?
- austenallred 9y ago
  Yes. careers@lambdaschool.com
LaikaF 9y ago
Well I applied. Hope I get in. Any idea what the acceptance rate is like? What sort of time frame will you hear back if you got accepted or not?
- austenallred 9y ago
  2-3% You'll hear back within a couple weeks.
londons_explore 9y ago
Wonder how legal taking a percentage of future earnings forever is? For example, could I sell you a car and say "the price is 1% of all your future earnings"? Legally I guess I'd have to say "The car is $30k, but I'm giving you a loan at 999% interest, with repayment demands capped at 1% of your salary (upon production of salary evidence), and the loan to be forgiven in full in the case of death".
darry 9y ago
cool!
diegoperini 9y ago
Computer Science and Computer Engineering are two different things and the proposed curriculum cover none of these completely. The term CS education therefor is misleading. I would suggest "Introduction to Computer Engineering". > "At that point we take 17% of income for two years" This is insane for too many reasons. What happens when the applicant change jobs, goes abroad, gets fired, quits, creates her own company?

436 points by austenallred 9y ago

jbob2000 9y ago

How do you know that your graduates are or aren't making more than 50k? How do you know that you're getting your 17%? Aside from that, you're essentially giving your students a loan and then having them repay it once they start earning money. How is this any different than a regular student loan (but with way more risk on your end)?

austenallred 9y ago
> How do you know that your graduates are or aren't making more than 50k? Great question. In addition to our income share agreement, each student submits a form to the IRS that will essentially copy us on their taxes. We have annual reconciliation based on those numbers to see if they match a student's self-reported numbers. > You're essentially giving your students a loan and then having them repay it once they start earning money. Eh, kind of. The biggest difference is if they don't get a job that pays $50k+ they don't pay us. Also, if you ever lose a job, your payments stop until you're back on your feet. It's an equity instrument, and we think it's much better and more forgiving than loans as a result of that.
- jbob2000 9y ago
  Ah cool! I was curious about the income thing, thanks for sharing!
- mkagenius 9y ago
  If that's a step function, then people would be happy earning $49,999 than $60k (and may even try to negotiate with the employer to reduce the salary)
  - austenallred 9y ago
    I suppose that's a risk we have to take, though being willing to forgo $10k of income for two years ($20k) in order to avoid paying $20k seems a little silly; all you'd gain are the taxes, but you'd also have a hard time getting a raise, etc.
    - JavaOffScript 9y ago
      Unless they form a contract with their employers saying they will take 49,999 for 2 years with a guaranteed raise to 60k at the end. Employer saves money, employee saves money, school gets screwed...
      - austenallred 9y ago
        If that's how you want to optimize your life, congratulations. You cheated the school that gave you a chance out of a few thousand dollars. Might be smarter to just get paid more :)
        brlewis 9y ago
        The way I read it you collect 17% once they start earning $50k+. Do you really collect nothing if their first two years are below?
        austenallred 9y ago
sigstoat 9y ago
i'm not affiliated, but like this model. > How do you know that your graduates are or aren't making more than 50k? How do you know that you're getting your 17%? you can ask students to fill out and sign, as a condition of admission, forms authorizing the IRS to hand over their tax returns, in advance. it wouldn't be very hard to contract with a law firm to take the results and check to see if they had more than 50k of income, while ignoring/discarding all other information. or just have them sign a thing saying they'll do X. if they lie, they're probably committing fraud. most folks don't run around committing high dollar fraud. > Aside from that, you're essentially giving your students a loan and then having them repay it once they start earning money. How is this any different than a regular student loan (but with way more risk on your end)? the point of this model is to lower risk for the student, and hope that the value you're providing is sufficient to offset the additional risk you're accepting.
- busterarm 9y ago
  This is essentially the same was what AppAcademy does, though they don't offer this to everyone across the board anymore (some groups have to prepay in full).
  - austenallred 9y ago
    Also we're 100% online, so people don't have to move to San Francisco for 3+ months.
  - sunjieming 9y ago
    Yeah, it's a similar idea with a few differences. Lambda School is six months long, online, and teaches CS fundamentals (computer architecture, operating systems, C++) in addition to full-stack web development and mobile development. Lambda School also doesn't require a deposit.
- sant_176 9y ago
  Could you please tell me whether its applicable in India or any other counties or not?

omalleyt 9y ago

Brilliant, I've long thought that all universities should run under this model (although when applied to the humanities I can hear in my head the 3000 years of the land owning, non-laboring intelligentsia protesting about the noble virtues of an education uncorrupted by the banalities of productive yada yada...) But anyway back to CS. 1) Risk is pooled in the institution rather than distributed amongst the students, which is the textbook way to deal with uncorrelated risk. 2) The incentive of the university and the student are aligned as much as possible 3) By putting costs and benefits into a form with equal time horizons, disadvantaged students no longer need to rely on the generosity of governments or private lenders for upfront cash. The only thing I'd always questioned was whether such a scheme as described above could pass legal muster, as it bears a resemblance to involuntary servitude, as well as requiring access to income statements. I've never heard of anyone but the govt placing liens on income. I'm hoping a workaround has been found, because from a strictly incentive based analogy, this model has the potential to do to modern education what patent law did to manufacturing

nickwalter 9y ago
What did patent law do to manufacturing?
austenallred 9y ago
Amen :) > The only thing I'd always questioned was whether such a scheme as described above could pass legal muster Income share agreements are all-but blessed, at least in the US, and in Australia they pretty closely mirror how most student loans work. > It bears a resemblance to involuntary servitude The concerns of indentured servitude go away when you realize each student can live or work or do whatever they'd like, they willingly enter into the agreement, etc. We obviously want them to get a high-paying job, and it's in both of our best interests for them to do so.
- omalleyt 9y ago
  Awesome, that's great to hear. And I completely agree with your last paragraph, my concern (without knowing the relevant laws) was always just what a judge would hear. Really glad to see someone doing this

wanghq 9y ago

Why call it Lambda?

austenallred 9y ago
Originally we only taught functional programming (Haskell), but as we moved more commonly-used languages we kept the name. At times I regret that, but I like the name.
wmf 9y ago
Why call a VC fund Y Combinator? People love borrowing random CS terms for company names.

nxc18 9y ago

This is very interesting and I like the finance model a lot. I'd be curious to see more details on the syllabus, however. I also have questions about the quality of instruction. There are some big name institutions listed, but that doesn't necessarily indicate quality instruction. The best researchers are often emphatically not the best instructors, and for this venture instructors are much more important. I sincerely hope this is successful; perhaps this can prompt traditional institutions to be more innovative (in delivery, instruction, finance, all of it).

austenallred 9y ago
> The best researchers are often emphatically not the best instructors, and for this venture instructors are much more important. This is very true. Most of our instructors are refugees from an academic world; they really just want to teach, and research for them was a necessary evil. We have a pretty rigorous hiring process (and we're hiring now! careers@lambdaschool.com) >I'd be interested to see more on the syllabus What would you like to see?
- 0xffff2 9y ago
  >What would you like to see? Not OP, but I think your "syllabus" is seriously lacking in detail. For example, you have a week and a half of "operating systems" That is summarized as 4 bullet points. I would really expect to see at least a paragraph under each of the three sections describing exactly what a student should understand after completing each module. For the operating systems section, I would like to see something like this for the first half of week 19: |Operating Systems II |After completing this section, students should be able to describe the various levels of memory used by modern computers, including CPU caches, RAM and swap space. Students should understand how each of these levels of memory are used during program execution. Additionally, students should understand how memory is addressed, including physical and virtual addressing, how memory is managed and allocated by the operating system, and how memory may be shared by multiple processes on the same system.
  - austenallred 9y ago

icpmacdo 9y ago

Is the content your teaching currently openly available or are there plans to make it available in the future?

austenallred 9y ago
We have no immediate plans to do that, but honestly finding content isn't the hard part of learning for most people; there are some pretty great resources out there for free.

sant_176 9y ago

Could you please tell me whether its applicable in India or any other counties or not?

supernumerary 9y ago

Recurse Center 2.0 ...

austenallred 9y ago
Eh, kind of. We're a structured class with people teaching you full-time.

dfabulich 9y ago

IMO, the cost of living is the core problem with CS education programs like this. It's always been possible to teach yourself to code for free if you have a computer, Internet, and 40 hours a week to spend on practice. But who can afford to do that? What these programs need most of all are cheap dormitories that offer room and board. (Close proximity to students can also help provide one another with a support network.)

austenallred 9y ago
> What these programs need most of all are cheap dormitories that offer room/board. That's also true, but it's much more easily for someone to find a place to crash for six months than to come up with $10k out-of-pocket. Eventually we'll be able to provide a stipend for living expenses and/or dormitory style living as well, but for now it is what it is.
- dfabulich 9y ago
  A studio apartment in Oakland is $1,500 a month. There are already a bunch of great free resources to learn to code, including Codecademy, Coursera, Khan Academy, MIT OpenCourseware, and freeCodeCamp. Right now, the people who need to learn to code need room and board, not yet another free coding school.
  - austenallred 9y ago
    First, why live in Oakland? A lot of our students move to more friendly environments (read: cheaper) during that time. There are a lot of great resources, no doubt, but those don't really compare to an in-person experience with an instructor and a school incentivized to take you all the way to hired.
  - MarkMc 9y ago
    The difference is that with Khan Academy, Coursera etc. you need self discipline. With Lambda you have a coach who expects you to be at your computer at 9am every weekday, and who has a strong financial incentive to ensure you learn. Plus in time a Lambda qualification may become more respected by employers than a Coursera degree.

wonderous 9y ago

Have you run across any prior business that trade education for a percentage of future income? Ask since I've looked at this model before and while I'm not able to find it, I recall court cases that ruled against this type of finical agreement.

austenallred 9y ago
Yeah, even Purdue University uses income share agreements, it's not widespread but it's not rare either.
sylvainkalache 9y ago
Holberton School is also using this model since we announced in 2015. We are working with VEMO http://vemo.com/ISAinitiative/ http://vemo.com/ISAinitiative/ they are specialized in ISA - most schools are using them.
jvrossb 9y ago
Make School (also YC, W12), has offered income based repayment since 2014 for our college program www.makeschool.com/product-college. There are now 3 cohorts of students who have gotten jobs and paid us under this model and a 4th is entering this fall.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

leeronisrael 9y ago

CC: Treehouse Seems equivalent to their "tech degree" which costs $199/mo

sunjieming 9y ago
Well, self-paced options typically have very low graduation rates. It's hard to compare a self-paced online course to something that's live, full-time and >40 hours a week with instructors, TAs, etc.

smaps 9y ago

Any potential for time changes in the future? I'm on EST and being in a class M-F 12p-9p is a bit harsh.

austenallred 9y ago
We're always trying to figure that out, but it's the time that (barely) works for all parties

hysan 9y ago

Out of curiosity, I signed up for the JavaScript Mini Code Bootcamp - Archive to evaluate the quality of the lectures. I've been watching/listening to the first 20+ min and so far, I'm quite skeptical of the quality of the instruction. Are the archives some sort of practice run or are they reminiscent of the actual lectures?

austenallred 9y ago
That's where we test new instructors. It's a class taught to thousands of people at once, so very, very different.
- hysan 9y ago
  I see. Thanks for answering that. If you don't mind, I have some follow-up questions then (since I'm considering doing this as a way to get back into a programming career and possibly recommending this to a friend's friend who has been looking for a bootcamp to change careers): * What is the style for the actual lectures? * Are you using any tools aside from screencasting and chat to supplement the lectures? * Your courses are listed as full time, 9-6 affairs. What is the typical schedule over the course of the day? * Is there any room in the course/syllabus for the instructors to help students with questions about related topics not included in the syllabus? For example, a quick glance shows that you cover React Native's ListView but I see no mention of the newer FlatList or SectionList. * Related, do you discuss why certain tools are chosen to be taught over others? And how to choose a library to use when presented with several seemingly similar options? For example, XMLHttpRequest vs fetch vs SuperAgent vs etc. vs your choice of axios. Same with react-navigation over other libraries. People unfamiliar with the field will undoubtedly hear about these other libraries or even get asked about them, so I'm a bit concerned about recommending this to someone without any background in programming at all.
  - austenallred 9y ago
    I hope you'll forgive me that it'll take a minute to get to these questions.

artur_makly 9y ago

Bravo! This is overdue. Back in the early 80's my dad ( a chess teacher from Odessa ) immigrated to NYC ( with just $150 ). My mom worked 3 jobs to put him through Yeshiva Uni where he learned Cobol, JCL, and Fortran. He ended up getting hired right away by Lehman Bros, and realized he was sitting on a gold-mine. Tons of well-educated immigrants were coming onto the golden-paved shores, with 0 knowledge of computer programming. So we upgraded our family 1.5 bdrm apt in Jackson Heights, Queens, to a modest 3 bedroom tower apt in Forest Hills, where he proceeded to lecture evening and weekend classes by the droves.. (all on 1 white board!) * my job ( i was 13 at the time ) was to serve everyone instant coffee and bagels. One day I was curious and asked him “Dad, these folks can barely speak english.. how are they going to even pass their interviews?” — he looked up from his hand-drawn spreadsheet he kept a strict record of students..”Oh that part is easy… I already know all their future managers” — It was the perfect funnel. best of luck fellas!

austenallred 9y ago
What a great story. As someone who lived near Odessa for some time, thank you!
wyclif 9y ago
Fascinating story; why don't you write this up long-form and submit it here to HN?
- artur_makly 9y ago
  yeah there is much to say! (good and bad) Alas running a digital studio, a startup, and being a father to a wild 5yr old boy has produced few disposable hours(sigh) ..however weekly Medium posts is something i've been meaning to do...especially as im living abroad. thanks for the encouragement.
pvsukale3 9y ago
Write it in an article.
j_s 9y ago
This sounds like the perfect opportunity for a documentary project, well beyond just a write-up. What an awesome example to be so close to!

webwanderings 9y ago

I was curious about the type of students you'd want to recruit. The type you're featuring all seems to be out of college and have experience under their belt. Your schedule is full day learning. So now I wonder: are you targeting people who are out of jobs? It seems a little confusing to understand your criteria of recruiting students (I have not paid too much attention yet).

jansho 9y ago
Ah I forgot about the full week schedule (my post was also about your first question). I'm also curious about how the programme is structured on a typical day. For me personally, if there is a part time option (4 days a week even) this would be hugely attractive.
austenallred 9y ago
There's not a "type" we're looking for; some of our best students barely finished high school, let alone college. Our schedule is full-time just because we're looking for people that are dedicated. We're working on part-time, but have to be more careful with that, as it would be about a year long.
- webwanderings 9y ago
  But how would a person in high school dedicate full time learning 'how to program'? That seems impossible. The same goes for full time college student. Let's say I think I am dedicated (I know you'll have your own criteria on identifying my dedication). Say that I am in high school. How do you expect me to study during your defined hours full time? The best I could think of is dedicating my full time hours during summer vacation (if I have to let go of my part time job, camps, or home-work - testing, AP etc). The same would apply when I am in college trying to get a degree. In addition, I also don't see how any full time working individual could find time to accommodate learning schedule during the day. Say that I may be looking to change career.
  - jansho 9y ago
    I think the concept is awesome and I hope that my comment won't be taken as cynical: I get the dedication part but some people may have commitments that they can't avoid at all - childcare, for example. Having commitments shouldn't be confused with lacking dedication, IMO. For me, the biggest USP about a remote school, or any MOOC really, is the flexibility that it offers. Structured, yes, but 3-5 hours a day would be more manageable than 9-5 five days a week. That will probably add extra months to the course though - but that's OK, a Masters takes 1-2 years for comparison. Of course Lambda instructors are world-class, but technically you can train yourself; there are very good guides signposting to free resources, and online communities for support. It might not be to the level of depth that the Lambda course offers, but is indepth knowledge really a key employability trait? (I'm not questioning the value of knowledge.) After all, many recruiters now emphasise on having a good portfolio over a certificate. But hey this is more like a feedback than a criticism. I sincerely think that this concept is super and hope that the Academy succeeds :)

balls187 9y ago

How will you prevent this from becoming predatory as pressure for improving the bottom line mounts? It feels like a very fine line between altruism and taking advantage of ignorance.

austenallred 9y ago
I'm not sure how to answer that question; if you are giving people a job it's hard to be too predatory so long as you charge reasonable rates. We simply try to be honest and fair up-front.
- balls187 9y ago
  > so long as you charge reasonable rates. We simply try to be honest and fair up-front. And what is your plan to prevent you from changing your terms later?
  - austenallred 9y ago
    You sign an agreement.
sattoshi 9y ago
How exactly is this taking advantage of anybody?
- balls187 9y ago
  The exact terms aren't disclosed, and what is disclosed is too open ended. This is what I could get from their website. https://lambdaschool.com/about https://lambdaschool.com/about > Attending Lambda School is completely free up-front, and students pay back a portion of their income after they find a high-paying job. > If, for some reason, a student is unable to find a job with a salary above the set threshold, they are not required to pay anything. The total amount of repayment is also capped at a pre-determined maximum amount. How long is the statute of limitations before I no longer have to pay? What if I am unable to get a job, and then later do a paid-for program that does land a job? What if I get a job as in QA, Program/Product Management? What will stop you from changing your terms mid-course and require me to accept new terms before finishing?

jansho 9y ago

What's the application criteria like? I notice that the current students listed in the website all have some sort of technical/reputable background (one even had an MS in Computer Science already!) Does this mean that the computer science course is not for complete beginners? I also noticed a mini web dev bootcamp, when will this be launched? Thanks :)

austenallred 9y ago
The application criteria is pretty much that we can only accept n% of students (currently it's a little less than 3%), so those are the most "credentialed" students, but probably not representative. It's vague, but what we really look for is dedication and a love for programming itself (as opposed to wanting to make more money), which exhibits itself in a variety of ways. We hope to move to a model soon where as long as you complete code challenge x, you're enrolled, but we're not there.

jeron 9y ago

What are the differences between this and Make School?

austenallred 9y ago
A lot of things. We're online-only, focus on CS not building apps, 6 months long (vs 2 yrs), a bit less expensive, and generally speaking target different markets. I don't have anything bad to say about Make School. Have never met them, but they seem like they're doing a fine job!
- jvrossb 9y ago
  Hey Austen - we should meet! We have a 4 term sequence of CS courses that cover most if not all the topics listed on your curriculum page. These topics are also touched upon and put to practice in our mobile, web, and to some extent our data science courses. It's only our Summer Academy which caters to students enrolled at others schools on summer vacation which focuses on app or VR development.
  - austenallred 9y ago
    Cool. Ya we should meet sometime.

Seylerius 9y ago

This is an awesome idea. What I'd really like to know, however, is if any of the existing loan options will accept this as schooling in order to loan a student money for living expenses. Some students already have a family, and thus they cannot crash at a flophouse.

austenallred 9y ago
It likely depends on who you talk to. We probably don't have a long enough of a history for most, but eventually housing is something we'd like to have a fund for ourselves.

haskellandchill 9y ago

Awesome, I'd love to be running something like this IRL with room and board like another commenter mentioned. Will settle for being a hiring partner :)

austenallred 9y ago
Room and board is something we're working on.

veb 9y ago

This is definitely one of the more interesting ideas/launches that I've seen on HN recently, congrats! I'll definitely be following you guys to see what you get up to.

austenallred 9y ago
Thanks!

maxxxxx 9y ago

That's how public education should work in my view. Repay a certain percentage of your income for a certain amount of time.

brewdad 9y ago
We use property values as a proxy for income. It is by no means a perfect substitute, but it seems to work ok. The primary drawback being that wealthier districts can raise more money than poorer ones. This would still be an issue if we used income directly though.

literallycancer 9y ago

Here's an idea: go live in a cheaper country, pay couple grand for the whole degree. No one will have heard of the school, but that's the case anyway unless you go to the few top US schools.

francogt 9y ago

Do you accept or plan on accepting international students?

austenallred 9y ago
Working on it. It comes with a lot of complications.

francogt 9y ago

I remember the Functional Programming course you guys taught. Any chance of putting that course in the "Free Course Archives" :)

austenallred 9y ago
Sure :)

bearcobra 9y ago

Do you plan on accepting students from outside the US, and if so how does that change your model?

austenallred 9y ago
We will open in the EU and Canada soon.
- tu7001 9y ago
  Hm... EU, Great Britain is still in the EU, but will not be soon; are you going to accept from there?

bambataa 9y ago

I think this is an excellent idea. There definitely is a gap in the market for non-CS grads who want to get a more robust grounding than a ten-week bootcamp can offer. I'm interested in how you select applicants but your website doesn't let me look at the application process. Your funding model means selecting the right students is crucial as you carry the risk. How do you select from the candidates? Are they meant to be already quite experienced? I looked through the curriculum and it seems very intense even for someone with a bit of coding experience. How do you make sure people keep up the pace?

austenallred 9y ago
We keep that kind of close to the chest. We have pre course work for applicants to complete, and let's say we can learn a lot from that.

bipbip 9y ago

Looks very similar to Holberton School - https://www.holbertonschool.com/ https://www.holbertonschool.com/ - launched 2 years ago, it's also 17% after students get a job. Their curriculum covers low-level programming, high-level programming and system engineering. They have a pretty good track record so far, students finding opportunities at NASA, LinkedIn, Apple, Dropbox, Docker.

austenallred 9y ago
Ya, holberton is solid. It would be difficult or impossible for most of our students to move to San Francisco unpaid for two years.
- bipbip 9y ago
  They get paid pretty fast though at Holberton, as they start their first internship after 6 months in.
  - austenallred 9y ago
    Ya I've got nothing against Holberton, it's just not a model that works for the vast majority of our students.
0xffff2 9y ago
>They have a pretty good track record so far, students finding opportunities at NASA, LinkedIn, Apple, Dropbox, Docker. Where are you getting that information? NASA is doing very little direct hiring right now, certainly not hiring software engineers without a bachelors degree. It's entirely possible to get hired as a contractor working at NASA, but that's really not the same thing.

sethbannon 9y ago

How is this different than Make School's model (also a YC company)? I understand they've been doing this for some time, and even offer a stipend to people who are accepted in the program to help pay for housing and other costs. https://www.makeschool.com/product-college/admissions#tuition https://www.makeschool.com/product-college/admissions#tuitio...

austenallred 9y ago
A full ISA from Make School would cost you approximately $90,000, and would require you to move to San Francisco for 2+ years. Nothing against Make School, we're just going after a very different market.

jrs95 9y ago

I really hope this model ends up growing beyond CS and into other fields as well. The traditional 4 year university model could definitely use the competition.

austenallred 9y ago
We're launching other programs soon, starting with AI/Machine Learning, bioinformatics, and data science. We plan on becoming a full blown university at some point.

bored 9y ago

Do you offer opportunities for existing programmers who are looking to improve their skills with the goal of getting a higher programmer salary?

austenallred 9y ago
We're working on that. Not yet, probably three months out.
- bored 9y ago
  Would the commission be less?
  - austenallred 9y ago
    Would probably have to be. Our risk is much less.
- RUG3Y 9y ago
  If you have a solution to this problem, I'd be extremely interested.

dragonfax 9y ago

This isn't new. And with schools like this, they say "good job" or tech job, but they mean "any job" (that pays over 50k). I've had friends screwed by this before. If you can't get hired because you went to a "dev bootcamp" or just aren't good enough with code after spending all that time in school, they'll come after your for that car mechanic pay check.

austenallred 9y ago
That's simply not true
- ztratar 9y ago
  Actually it is. https://www.appacademy.io/ https://www.appacademy.io/
  - austenallred 9y ago
    I was referring to the part about us taking a percentage if you're not working as an engineer. Of course there are other schools that use income share agreements.
    - lquist 9y ago
      Afaik App Academy only collects for software engineering jobs.

sureste 9y ago

Anyone can help me with a question I have? What if I want to take this program from outside of the USA and want to work remotely? Would this count as working in the USA? (Which is one of the questions on the form)

austenallred 9y ago
No, it's almost impossible for us to guarantee that kind of a job.

r0brodz 9y ago

Im 32 and have 4 kids. I would love to excel at this program and reach high coding experience. I really am struggling economicly.

austenallred 9y ago
Apply!
- r0brodz 9y ago
  Wish I could. I work full time at 12 bucks per hr as a pipefitter helper. I so wish we had basic income or some kind of help so I could do thid. There is nothing more in this planet I want most is to be a computer scientist.

sergiotapia 9y ago

Do you take older people >50 years old with zero programming experience? I want to forward this to someone.

austenallred 9y ago
Yes!
- byproxy 9y ago
  That's cool, but isn't there an inherent ageism in the industry that would prevent someone of that vintage from getting a job? Especially without a broad resume.. I'm all for the idea of older folk getting tech jobs (I'd like to be one myself, someday), but it seems like a larger risk on your part.
  - austenallred 9y ago
    There may be some ageism, but there are enough employers that don't care that we're more than OK to take that risk.

ajdkjafklds 9y ago

I'm a bit confused why you're teaching JavaScript and C++. It would seem like those are geared toward different types of jobs. Also I've heard that other schools stopped two languages as it's too difficult to get people without prior experience to programming to learn two languages in such a short time period.

omot 9y ago

I'm kind of nervous that there's a lack of discrete math in the courses listed. I believe it's a fundamental requirement to gain understanding of the underlying intuition behind a lot of CS.

RUG3Y 9y ago

I need the education but I already have a job. Two years ago, I would have jumped into this feet first.

gigatexal 9y ago

Hmm kudos. I’ll have to look into this.

SimianLogic2 9y ago

I've thought a bit about how you would structure something like this as a pro-bono service instead of a paid service. The thing I always struggle with is how to get people who currently lack the basic computer skills, math, and logic skills and get them to the point where they could benefit from a bootcamp. Most people I know who've made it through a bootcamp successfully already had some sort of exposure to coding before starting. You'd almost need a skills camp before the bootcamp that would be less choosy and take the top 20-30% of those students into a further bootcamp... but at that point the economics start to break down (why it'd likely need to be pro-bono). Anyway, that was a big tangent! I think what you're doing is interesting. Do you have a twitter account set up if we're interested in following along?

vimarshk 9y ago

Great idea. Great business model. I think the issue will be for the engineers who graduate to get over the bias that software companies have today over hiring from a code bootcamp/code school.

austenallred 9y ago
Yeah, we hope to be the antidote to that and create our own brand.

jplank1983 9y ago

What happens if I complete the curriculum and then decide to seek employment in a different field? Do I still pay?

mediocrejoker 9y ago

It's too bad this is US only.

keithnz 9y ago

I feel it's misleading, it's naming feels like its coat tailing off implying something like a university comp sci degree ( with a practical bent), and this seems more of a React web/mobile app design course with a bit of C++ and some basic algorithms ( presumably so they can pass interviews that seem to be obsessed with such things ) $30k seems steep, and while 0 $ upfront is appealing, that kind of strategy can be exploitative( like 0% deposit financing ). It can be super appealing to someone who doesn't have much money, but they end up paying a lot more than they really should be. Not saying this is bad (maybe it's good thing), but when look through it, I'm getting alarm bells.

GuiA 9y ago
17% is huge, particularly when you consider it within the context of after tax income. $100k salary is $60k or so after taxes in California; take away $17k + rent and food, and you're getting pretty close to paycheck to paycheck living, particularly if the person has loans from a failed college attempt, medical expenses, etc. They're essentially asking for $30-$60k or so - which is more than in state tuition for a bachelor's degree in many states. The difference is that a BSc is still widely recognized and accepted and will still be in 10 years (despite what many HNers would like to think), unlike this program, which most certainly won't even exist anymore.
- austenallred 9y ago
  Repayment is capped at $30k max, so the most we could possibly take is $30,000.
  - GuiA 9y ago
    Original posting is ambiguous on whether the $30k cap is yearly, or for the whole duration. Thanks for the correction.
- bb611 9y ago
  I lived (well) in San Jose on <$65,000 pre-tax for 4 years, including picking up a degree at nights to the tune of $20K. I agree that it is some financial challenge, but it is nowhere near as dire as "paycheck to paycheck." I agree with your larger point that a bachelor's degree is a better value, especially over the long term. Unfortunately a BS is going to take longer to get, especially in CA, where the education pipeline is overflowing and underfunded (but still very good value for money).

dlet 9y ago

Love the concept! What about the people who want to freelance after the program? What will be the fees for them?

austenallred 9y ago
The same! It's income-based regardless of where you work.

Humphrey 9y ago

Australia has the best of all of this already to study at any Australian University! - Depending on your social-economic background, The government pays you a cost-of-living income [1], - pays your university fees [2] which are tiny compared to US fees, - and you repay back 4%/year once your have an income > than approx A$55,000. 17% looks very painful in comparison! Of cause, you need to be an Australian, so it probably doesn't help most of you! [1] Depending on your Probably actually less than cost of living, so most students also work a day or more a week while studying. [2] They cover the university fees -- You still need to pay for books, and other similar expenses up front.

usegolang 9y ago
4% a year for how long and what's the cap? What if you never get a job? Any other restrictions? Ps - forgive my shortness I'm on mobile.
- justonepost 9y ago
  Yesh, how many years?? Two years is nothing.
- notoriousjpg 9y ago
  4% until you pay it off. The "interest" on your loan is pegged at inflation. If you never get a job you never pay it back. This is actually a problem for the gov, where older students study but never find a job in their field. Great scheme overall though.

corporateslave2 9y ago

Services like this will flood the job market. I wish I could get out of engineering

austenallred 9y ago
There's a service called college that millions of people begin each year. We'll barely be a drop in the bucket. The demand for engineers is growing rapidly. You'll be just fine.
- corporateslave2 9y ago
  Right but this is zero upfront cost. Kudos to you guys if it works out
  - wyclif 9y ago
    If you love barriers to entry for others so much, you should go into a licensed profession like real estate or dentistry.

arikrak 9y ago

Nice to offer a pay-it-later approach (like App Academy) but seems a bit expensive for an online course?

austenallred 9y ago
The expense of these courses is instructors, regardless of where the course is held.

minikomi 9y ago

For those outside of the US take note: Just a note: We are currently unable to offer income-based repayment outside of the United States. You can still attend Lambda School, but you would have to pay at least $10,000 up-front

ryan-allen 9y ago
Ouch, and 17% seems quite steep? Hm. It might be cheaper compared to a student loan in the USA, but in Australia, you can attend university and get a degree for roughly that cost (or cheaper, from what I understand).
ekevjn 9y ago
Do you have plan to support student outside us so they will have a change to get remote job or even full-time job?

drumttocs8 9y ago

What if the student decides to use those skills to create their own startup, instead of getting a regular job? How would you get paid?

austenallred 9y ago
We still take a percentage of income. So we'll be rooting for you!

adrianmui 9y ago

Viking Code School grad here. Really happy more institutions are implementing this method. I didn't have to take loans to start my journey in Full Stack development. It's been the best decision of my life.

uniclaude 9y ago

Amazing! I'm pleased to see that there are startups out here trying to solve this type of problems. Taking the risk is ballsy and should be rewarded! Questions! - Do you plan to extend the syllabus to something more fundamental? Asking because you have some C++ and already go further than bootcamps, so I'm wondering if you intend to pursue this direction and get closer to a formal CS education. - Do you plan to work on giving some sort of degrees later? Some countries require degrees for immigration, which is a door that bootcamps do not open. By offering degrees, you open the global market to your students, and in an increasingly connected world, it can make a huge difference. I basically owe my quality of life to the mobility I got thanks to my degree, and this is something I wish to everyone. Massive Kudos to you guys! I hope you will eventually offer the same service to students outside of the US. The market is large.

austenallred 9y ago
1. We think we're already covering a lot of the fundamentals. We're not all the way yet, but we're within striking distance of a CS degree. 2. To give a "degree" you have to be accredited, which brings all sorts of ridiculous rules along with it that don't really make sense. So yes, but we're not ready to jump through those hoops yet.

all_blue_chucks 9y ago

Can you fail out of this program? If not, the degree is worthless. If so, the program wastes all the money it spent educating you. The incentives at play here seem a bit out of whack...

austenallred 9y ago
Of course you can fail out. We have to build that into our risk model.

austinlyons 9y ago

Who are the founders?

beilabs 9y ago

I'm going to play devils advocate here. I don't think I'd be in your target market primarily because I feel for 15k a year I can achieve a decent education just by online resources alone. It would be just as well recognized; I'd even think that a local community college could be cheaper. Granted, upfront cash is a luxury that few without the bank of mom and dad can access. An Irish degree costs 3000 euros a year to enroll. Even for four years that would be cheaper than what's on offer here with a world wide recognized qualification. On the whole, it seems like a very American solution to an American problem, education is just far too expensive in the states. * I'm a beneficiary of free state education from Ireland. Best of luck in the effort, I do applaud you for it especially in the US where there are always tech shortages but...I really wish your country was in a place where your type of business didn't have to exist. A country where only those who can afford to be educated can receive education. I'm saying this as someone living in Nepal where those who can't pay can't learn either. I really wish education was subsidized, worldwide! Alas, never going to happen.

austenallred 9y ago
Indeed, it is difficult to compete with the price of a fully subsidized education. That said, we still have students from the EU that attend Lambda School. It's not all about cost, it's also about use of time. You can get a degree that is more well recognized in four years, or you can attend Lambda School and work for three years. Would you rather hire someone with an official degree from a community college or someone that attended a CS Academy and worked for three years? You could argue either way, but it's not clear to me that the degree is the clear winner.
- beilabs 9y ago
  I'm curious how your students in Europe will agree to return the % of salary back to you. I would imagine there would be more restrictions in that regard than with the IRS. In Ireland even a degree in CS from the worst school guarantees a base of education that has been reviewed and agreed upon. I'm unaware if the same vigilance has been applied in your own curriculum. Also, please remember that degrees are necessary should one wish to migrate internationally in many situations so don't discount them out of hand. Personally, I'd hire the person with the degree before any bootcamp on its own. That said, I believe that most degrees are useless without real world knowledge and application. I've hired 10 staff over the past 12 months from a variety of backgrounds, some with MSc level, others who have barely scraped through their B.Sc. Qualifications means competence at school, doesn't always equal to success in the software engineering field.

b34r 9y ago

I applaud that you aren’t charging a base tuition in addition to your income-based repayment. 30k for a useful education, job placement assistance, and community is worth it.

iomotoko 9y ago

In the registration process: Are you legally authorized to work in the United States? Just a note: We are currently unable to offer income-based repayment outside of the United States. You can still attend Lambda School, but you would have to pay at least $10,000 up-front $10,000 - that's about as expensive as a high quality bachelor's degree (in Germany) at private university via distance learning, where someone can pay flexibly btw. Additionally: We are talking about 6 semesters worth of material and study, study time can be extended for free. What you are offering is a 6-month crash course where someone will have _NO_ degree whatsoever afterwards. I also doubt how much computer science you can teach in that time. Normal CS curriculum spends about one module (one semester's worth) on just the introduction to programming, has probably 2 modules (that you would do in 2 semesters) of computer science basics like computer architecture et cetera... there are so many good resources already available, including lectures of incredibly professors from some of the greatest universities. Also: You have to create the learning resources once and can take on as many students as you want w/out any additional cost, great for you, seems like selling snake oil to me. I am unsure besides the resources and apparently online group working ("group work happens live and interactive") what it is you provide for possibly 30k$ in cash? 1 success finances the cost you have w/ an incredible amount of failures, and it's not clear to me if that one guy finding a job will have done so bc of your awesome curriculum and support? It seems to me like anyone who can possibly finance proper education some other way should (and I want to repeat: it's a 6-months crash course, not a degree)

tedmiston 9y ago
Germany is an outlier in higher education. In the US, $10k is lucky to get you 1 year of in-state tuition and books (excluding room and board) at an average public state school with a CS program. If you go to college in a state different than what you live in, the rates are even higher.
- iomotoko 9y ago
  I am quite aware that the situation might be different, I still consider most of my points valid for the US though, for example regarding quality of education provided + that the business seems a little bit "shady" to me. btw: a degree from the University of London (via distance learning, can be done from many parts of the world) is about ~5000£ (~6482$) - again we are talking about flexible payment + great study resources (6 semester's worth) + a full bachelor's degree! This however seems (to me) w/ all due respect like a "get rich quick" scheme that won't work for 99% of people. And the other 1% would have probably made it some other way and are possibly paying 30k$ for it (and I want to stress again: 30k$ for a 6 month crash course with _no_ degree in the end)

rajacombinator 9y ago

Mixed feelings ... 50k/yr hardly sounds like a successful placement for a semi competent programmer, more like a pipeline to the gulag in a profession that's notoriously bad at obtaining fair wages. (I presume OP will be teaching the segment on living in your car in Palo Alto ... ;p ) However, I've always been curious about this business model for schools and hope it succeeds!

austenallred 9y ago
The number is $50k because of folks in smaller/more rural areas. There $50k can be quite a lot.
- jhall1468 9y ago
  Yes it can, which is why using a flat pretax minimum is absolutely silly. $50k in Seattle isn't living confortably, but with your cut it's $41.5k. That's less than a bank teller makes. You should have a COL adjusted minimum. Otherwise you'll only be targeting rural areas where most jobs aren't.
  - austenallred 9y ago
    Ya, we could, that just gets complicated really fast

segmondy 9y ago

How long does the student have to wait before getting a job to void the agreement? What if a student takes the class, can't get a job, then spends 6 months of their own time on MOOC and gets a job should they still pay 17%?

txttran 9y ago

Let's say I make $60k a year now in an unrelated field and I join your school, but after graduating, I was unable to find a job in software. Would I still be on the hook to pay you 17% of my income despite not landing a programming job?

austenallred 9y ago
No, you'd never pay us a dime.

grondilu 9y ago

So basically it's a student loan with a friendly debt collection policy?

austenallred 9y ago
I don't know of a student loan that disappears if you don't get a job that pays more than $50,000/yr
- grondilu 9y ago
  Now you do.
  - austenallred 9y ago
    Ha!

richardgill88 9y ago

This is great! I've trained 3 people to code using a similar meta-course I built. It's more of an apprenticeship scheme (they work for me once they get good enough). https://github.com/z-dev/learn-programming https://github.com/z-dev/learn-programming From that experience I think this idea could do well. I think no-win-no-fee education like this will be popular. I also think that a scheme like this could do a lot of social good and help people who might not want to go to University. Good luck :)

eps 9y ago

Not getting a job is one risk. Loosing the interest in CS is another. I know a fellow who was very much "into computers," decided to become a programmer, signed up for the (offline) classes and then had massive troubles trying to understand how a do-while construct works. He was in mid-20s back when it happened, spoke 3 languages and had a day job as a nurse. He did finish the course, got his grades, but ultimatley lost all the interest and never got into IT.

rovek 9y ago

> We train people to become software engineers, and we charge nothing until a student gets a software job that pays more than $50k/yr. At that point we take 17% of income for two years (capped at a maximum of $30k total). This is similar to how all university tuition fees in the UK work, with slightly different numbers. A very sensible solution to the astronomical cost of education, provided people want to get jobs. In the current UK scheme you pay 9% of the amount you earn over £21,000, or nothing while you earn less than that. Debt written off after something like 25 years if unpaid.

qwer7y 9y ago

This is awesome!

pw 9y ago

'austenallred is a cool individual, and this seems like it could be a particularly good take on the code school model, but I always wonder if programs like this help on the margin. That is, do they help people succeed (i.e. get a job in software) who otherwise wouldn't, or do they just accelerate the success of those who would, one way or another, eventually succeeded regardless of their participation in the program? I think the latter might be likely simply just because for good programs (like this one) demand far outstrips supply, so they can be extremely picky about who they accept and only accept individuals who are destined to succeed. Not that accelerating the success of those destined to succeed is in any way a bad thing (it is, undoubtedly, a good thing, and can certainly make for a good business), but my interest is much more in helping those succeed who otherwise wouldn't. That seems like a much harder challenge and one that can have more interesting ramifications for things like social mobility and income inequality.

MarkMc 9y ago
> demand far outstrips supply, so they can be extremely picky about who they accept and only accept individuals who are destined to succeed The same criticism has been applied to top-tier universities such as Harvard: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/who-needs-harvard/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/who-needs-harvard/
- heedlessly 9y ago
  Don't use Harvard as a parallel in your argument with Lambda. It just comes off very silly. Not too mention that the Harvard student body typically come from parents with a disproportionate amount of wealth relative to the general population. Their parents were alumni/donors or influential in some type of way. Not to mention, they could afford ACT/SAT tutors for their sons/daughters. So I advise everyone in this thread to to take what you just said with a grain of salt. This was a false equivalency.

j_s 9y ago

Austen, this is going a bit meta but why launch at ~4pm Eastern time instead of 8am? The post has done pretty well anyway - glad to see you hitting the big-time!

austenallred 9y ago
When you launch in YC you do so in coordination with the HN team. WE weren't scheduled for today, but another company was unresponsive so we stole the (late) spot.

patwalls 9y ago

App Academy has the same business model in SF and NY. I went there along with thousands of others. Cool that this is online though.

sailfast 9y ago

I like that this model has become available and wish you luck! Always good to have options for getting this education. One pedantic but perhaps important nit to pick: I would not recommend the language "especially if you come from a lower-class background". Lower income, reduced opportunity, lower education, etc but lower class reads like you're coming from a position of privilege that looks down on potential students.

austenallred 9y ago
Good point, thanks!

kareemsabri 9y ago

Looking for any instructors/TAs?

austenallred 9y ago
Yes. careers@lambdaschool.com

LaikaF 9y ago

Well I applied. Hope I get in. Any idea what the acceptance rate is like? What sort of time frame will you hear back if you got accepted or not?

austenallred 9y ago
2-3% You'll hear back within a couple weeks.

londons_explore 9y ago

Wonder how legal taking a percentage of future earnings forever is? For example, could I sell you a car and say "the price is 1% of all your future earnings"? Legally I guess I'd have to say "The car is $30k, but I'm giving you a loan at 999% interest, with repayment demands capped at 1% of your salary (upon production of salary evidence), and the loan to be forgiven in full in the case of death".

darry 9y ago

cool!

diegoperini 9y ago

Computer Science and Computer Engineering are two different things and the proposed curriculum cover none of these completely. The term CS education therefor is misleading. I would suggest "Introduction to Computer Engineering". > "At that point we take 17% of income for two years" This is insane for too many reasons. What happens when the applicant change jobs, goes abroad, gets fired, quits, creates her own company?