19 ms·

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

317 points by anaxag0ras 9y ago

tyingq 9y ago
"Under today’s agreement, Flatiron will pay $375,000 in restitution to eligible graduates" That's better than a fine. Though, it does mention 1000 students total, so perhaps not enough.
- 1_800_UNICORN 9y ago
  The school, which has taught approximately 1,000 students, charges students between $12,000 and $15,000 for a 12 to 16 week in-person class and approximately $1,500 a month for online coding classes. Let's assume a very conservative estimate of 800 students doing 1 of online work, and 200 students paying $12k for a class. That works out to $1.2M in online tuition, and $2.4M in in-person tuition. Given how conservative my estimate is, $375k seems like a pittance for operating without a license and lying about success rates.
  - sevensor 9y ago
    It's funny, I did the same math and concluded there's no way they profited enough from this scheme to cover the cost of noncompliance. Even if they took $3.6M in revenue, they had to pay salaries, expensive rent, and overhead for 5 years. That's barely scraping by. Hopefully they're sitting on a pile of investor money they can use to pay this settlement.
    - Fergusman 9y ago
      You need to flip the number, the online program is relatively new. The 1,000 taught reflects mostly in-person students.
    - amcooper 9y ago
      You're forgetting the dropouts. For every online student who graduates from Flatiron, there are many—maybe a dozen, maybe more—who drop out. Flatiron bills online students monthly, so they're raking in a good deal of money from dropouts who can't get their money back.
- Eridrus 9y ago
  On one hand, this is a total pittance, on the other hand the value from getting actual statistics out there is pretty huge. I don't know if reaching a small settlement helped with that, but kudos to the AG for shining some light on the issue.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    I'm also happy about it being restitution vs a fine that goes to the government. The latter happens often.
- gist 9y ago
  And the $375k understates the 'total cost of ownership'. I am sure legal fees ran them anywhere from $50k to several hundred thousand additional.
- brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
  Bang. You nailed it. So, so far from enough. These students are being told that there is a lack of skilled labor in tech. The city makes a tech-talent pipeline! It seems to the students like a huge opportunity. The news gets Katie Couric on it! And then they are presented with these really positive outcomes that are "verified". It seems like a lot of work to them, but it also looks like real hope. In the end, when the truth is revealed, each eligible student gets only $375? That might be enough for some raw denim. Who cares about any kind of certification? Real penalties for false claims alone would do it. How about providing each student with that salary they signed up to the program for for a full year? I have a feeling the teaching would get a whole lot better and the admissions process would keep the program small and help with individual mentorship. Not only are these programs wasting students' money, but they are eating up their time in a youth-favoring labor landscape. These schools should have to pay hefty restitution to every student who, encouraged by the so-called "verified", robust outcomes, signed up, and who eventually stopped doing their online course mid-program because they correctly assessed the bootcamp's lack of honesty/interest/vigor regarding the post-apocalyptic tundra that is the web-dev software employment landscape for career changers just entering it. If a student/grad gets more employer response from a résumé with the "well-respected" bootcamp removed from it...is that something that gets a bootcamp to hold a school-wide pow-wow to brainstorm ideas on how to approach the issue? Does the director send everyone a sincere and heartfelt apology for that? Are there transparent steps taken to get to the bottom of the issue and change it? No, the problem(s) get buried deep under the suffocating culture of infinite positivity that is designed to mute productive critique (that critique, if encouraged, might inspire positive change). The current students and grads talk to each other and find out just how few employers are interested in bootcamp grads, and of those employers the even smaller group who is interested in bootcamp grads who are also career changers and let's just say "those who are not an obvious culture fit".
Rbatista 9y ago
its getting real
- notyourday 9y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UFc1pr2yUU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UFc1pr2yUU
heedlessly2 9y ago
I'm not sure why people think bootcamps are a replacement for a college degree. If you look up the LinkedIn Profiles of successful bootcamp grads, about 99% of the time s/he already had a college degree from somewhere such as Amherst or Duke, plus several years of previous professional employment.
dominotw 9y ago
>Reinvent your career at tech’s most trusted bootcamp If this is "most trusted" , i wonder what shady stuff is going on in other bootcamps.
- FLUX-YOU 9y ago
  It's just marketing crap. The same way every company says "we're the leading software company doing X". Where is this chart that you're leading? Is your lead verified by someone else?
dopamean 9y ago
Though it may seem obvious to people here (on HN) this is a much bigger problem in the industry than people realize. In many ways these bootcamps are repeating the problems found at trade schools in the past. I taught at one for a year, MakerSquare, and found it to be a rewarding and positive experience however I know people at others, including the company that ended up buying MakerSquare who have had different experiences. When I worked MakerSquare about three years ago they, Hack Reactor, and I think Dev Bootcamp were trying to lead an initiative that would lead to standardized reporting of hiring stats. This was something we were excited about at MakerSquare because our hiring stats were legitimately great at the time and we knew that in many cases this wasn't true of our competitors. When Hack Reactor bought the company it was assuring to see that they were finding similar success. One thing that concerns me today, however, is that I still see ads on Facebook and other places for Hack Reactor's immersive program that report the exact same stats they were reporting three years ago. I find it very, very hard to believe those numbers are still accurate. In fact I'd go so far as to say they must be lying. They expanded their program dramatically through acquisition (MakerSquare and others) and then ramping up a very large "remote" program (a program that follows the same curriculum but taught entirely online). When I left MakerSquare (then acquired by Hack Reactor) I was under the impression that career services were not provided for remote students. They must be messing with the numbers somehow. There needs to be more honesty in the industry because I believe there really is a great opportunity to do good.
- PagingCraig 9y ago
  I graduated from HR recently and they do have their CIRR reporting stuff and it's pretty well done. They have tried to drag other bootcamps into using the same statistics, but there is no incentive to do that. I can't speak to their advertising and if the new numbers are reflected in that. I can't see bootcamps being around in 5 years without some major changes. P.S. Career services are provided for remote students.
  - dopamean 9y ago
    > P.S. Career services are provided for remote students. Good to hear. There was some debate about whether or not to provide services when I was there. I do wonder how effective those services are however. A big part of providing them is relationships with hiring partners in cities. It's a very tough thing to do from afar.
jefftk 9y ago
"Between January and June 2017, Flatiron claimed that 98.5% of its students received employment less than 180 days after graduation and that Flatiron graduates had an average salary of $74,447. However, Flatiron did not disclose clearly and conspicuously that the 98.5% employment rate included not only full time salaried employees but also apprentices, contract employees and self-employed freelance workers, some who were employed for less than twelve weeks. Similarly, Flatiron failed to clearly and conspicuously disclose that its $74,447 average salary claim included full time employed graduates only, which represent only 58% of classroom graduates and 39% of online graduates." Good to crack down on this. "In order to obtain a SED license, a non-degree granting career school must meet a number of criteria, including using an approved curriculum and employing a licensed director and teachers." This is worrying. Part of why these bootcamps have been a valuable addition is that they've been able to use their own curricula and train their own teachers.
- fredleblanc 9y ago
  Having done some work for a school that's jumped through these hoops, I believe that it's a different definition of "approved." It's not "choose one of these curricula we made up and do that," it's "show us your complete curriculum and defend how this makes a complete program."
  - iskander 9y ago
    The response times on approval can be pretty terrible and you get peppered with a lot of dumb requests by reviewers who don't actually understand the material. (I grew up around my parents' vocational school, board of education interactions looked totally insane)
    - kowdermeister 9y ago
      This. I work at a coding bootcamp and last week we decided to include CSS Grids in the syllabus for the advanced HTML/CSS week and this week we are practicing it. This would never be possible if we needed our syllabus accredited.
k8si 9y ago
Funny to look back at this now: https://nyti.ms/2vtd04V https://nyti.ms/2vtd04V NYT on 24 August 2017: "The Flatiron School in New York may have discovered one path. Founded in 2012, Flatiron has a single campus in downtown Manhattan and its main offering is a 15-week immersive coding program with a $15,000 price tag. More than 95 percent of its 1,000 graduates there have landed coding jobs." two months later NY AG, 17 October 2017: "However, Flatiron did not disclose clearly and conspicuously that the 98.5% employment rate included not only full time salaried employees but also apprentices, contract employees and self-employed freelance workers, some who were employed for less than twelve weeks. Similarly, Flatiron failed to clearly and conspicuously disclose that its $74,447 average salary claim included full time employed graduates only, which represent only 58% of classroom graduates and 39% of online graduates."
- rdiddly 9y ago
  Makes the Times look pretty stupid and/or like shills either unwitting or paid!
  - zachwood 9y ago
    Or perhaps, as seen directly in the quote "Flatiron did not disclose clearly and conspicuously...".
  - WoodenChair 9y ago
    I don't know why you're being downvoted. The epitome of so-called "fake news" is a newspaper reprinting stats a private corporation provides it in a matter-of-fact tone as the Times did here. Instead of writing, "More than 95 percent of its 1,000 graduates there have landed coding jobs." The Times should've written "Flatiron claims more than 95 percent of its 1,000 graduates there have landed coding jobs." Those two words Flatiron claims are the difference between reporting and restating as fact.
    - andrestan 9y ago
      In fairness to the Times I wouldn't call this fake news; just slightly sloppy reporting. Fake news implies that it's deliberately misleading which this doesn't appear to be. They are simply repeating claims.
lr4444lr 9y ago
I'm not the biggest job-hopper, but I've worked at 3 companies in the last 5 years in the NYC area, and have never once worked with, known anyone who's once worked with, or knew a hiring manager who would even consider someone whose only significant background in software was a coding bootcamp. For those who've experienced it, are they hired out of desperation into firms that need manpower and have enough more senior devs. to get them up to working competency or what?
- _jal 9y ago
  I've worked with two folks from (Bay Area) bootcamps. Those two were fine junior developers; compare with someone just out of school. One was actually quite a bit better than someone just out of school, because he was a bit older and had real-world experience that filled in a lot of blanks. Not saying that's normal. But my very limited experience with bootcampers has been positive. Yes, they were hired for the same reason bootcamps exist: demand.
- erichurkman 9y ago
  We have a few folks from bootcamps. For our team, it gives us options into a pool of talent with other non-coding skills and backgrounds. For example, one of our developers from a bootcamp was an accountant, and another was a financial analyst. Both are useful skills for a fin-tech company [eShares].
- icahnvalyou 9y ago
  In NYC - We brought someone on from a bootcamp a few months ago. He's the best bootcamp grad we talked to BY FAR and everyone more senior wouldn't take less than triple the salary we're all taking. We're a really small team, also.
- jasonshen 9y ago
  All of the last 3 companies I've worked at in NYC (Percolate, Etsy, and a seed stage startup) have hired multiple engineers straight out of bootcamps. They often were hired into junior roles but if they proved themselves, they would advance. Bootcamp grads are hungry, they're usually taught how to code collaboratively and how to push code to production (skills that are usually less emphasized in CS curriculum). Bootcamps aren't going away and would imagine your experience will be less and less common over time.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
alphonsegaston 9y ago
A while back, Zed Shaw was claiming to have some bootcamp takedown in the works based on dirt from students and insiders. But then nothing ever came of it. Not sure if he was afraid of getting sued or it was just posturing.
- geofft 9y ago
  This is the same Zed Shaw who believes Python 3 isn't Turing-complete because it's not compatible with Python 2? Why should anyone take him seriously?
  - fnovd 9y ago
    I'm not defending all of Shaw's ridiculous critiques of Python 3, but the Turing-complete thing was a joke. The conversation, IIRC, was something like this: ZS: Why can't I import or translate Python2 into Python3? P3: That would be a technically challenging thing to do. ZS: But surely it is technically possible, even if it is pragmatically unfeasible? P3: We can't do it. ZS: OK, Python 3 must be Turing-incomplete, ha ha ha! source: https://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/nopython3.html https://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/nopython3.html
    - geofft 9y ago
      It was definitely not interpreted as a joke by the target audience (people who are new to programming, let alone to the idea of Turing-completeness) - e.g., the third Google result for 'zed shaw turing' is a Reddit thread containing this comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/shittyprogramming/comments/5ejbr9/proof_that_python_3_is_not_turing_complete/dacxlhn/ https://www.reddit.com/r/shittyprogramming/comments/5ejbr9/p... So, I don't know if he was serious and then later edited that page to say it was a joke, or if he meant it as a joke and intended to misteach beginners, or if he meant it as a joke and did not realize he was misteaching beginners, but in all three of those cases, I don't see why he's a person worth listening to, especially on the subject of training programmers.
  - alphonsegaston 9y ago
    Never heard about that. Maybe it was all bluster then to promote his own stuff over bootcamps.
ron22 9y ago
Not sure I understand the misleading salary/job type part. Flatirons full jobs report for 2017 is here: Online: https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/69751/2017%20Online%20Outcomes%20Report.pdf https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/69751/2017%20Online%20Outcome... Onsite: https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/69751/NYCJobsReport%20July%202017%20-%20Full.pdf?t=1508207199598 https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/69751/NYCJobsReport%20July%20... Looks like these reports were made before the fine. Inside these reports, salary and job type are broken down and clearly stated. Were these reports altered after the fact?
- projectramo 9y ago
  I had the same question when I saw those. Before the fine is not before the investigation though. They may have changed those as the investigation started and they got questions about the disclosure. They may have fined them on the basis of the students who went through the program before they made the changes.
- throwthisawayt 9y ago
  The fine is for the stats that were on places like their website. They didn't define the stats clearly on their site.
  - Dtrane 9y ago
    These same stats are the only stats on their website and are only a few clicks from the homepage. I hope that somebody who goes through the entire process of applying to one of these does at least a little due diligence. https://flatironschool.com/outcomes/ https://flatironschool.com/outcomes/
eqmvii 9y ago
The shady employment outcome reporting issue mirrors a problem that has plagued law schools for years. In the worst cases, all 200 or so U.S. law schools would boast about high percentages of students landing 6-figure starting salaries. In reality, schools often only disclosed statistics based on students who completed enrollment surveys. https://www.lawschooltransparency.com https://www.lawschooltransparency.com came about as a resource to try to correct the record, but surely a lot of young people got swept up in the marketing only to discover the real outlook was much more grim.
- ghaff 9y ago
  It's not surprising that law schools seem to figure prominently in these sorts of stories. They used to be a fairly reliable meal ticket for liberal arts majors who decide it's time to get a real job. These days, especially outside of the very top schools, employment prospects aren't great and neither is pay even for those who do find a position.
unclesaamm 9y ago
I know some folks who graduated from Galvanize's Data Science program. They were told that historically 90% of graduates find jobs in 6 months. She is 6 months out, and only half of her cohort has a job.
- csours 9y ago
  * Past Performance Is Not Indicative Of Future Results
  - ceejayoz 9y ago
    Sure, but you've got bigger problems when... * Past performance may actually be totally made up.
- madenine 9y ago
  I did a data science program with another org, and while I had an extremely positive experience and got a great job out of it - I do think the sales pitch of these programs can be very misleading, especially to those coming in with less experience. They would have you believe that you can come in with little to no relevant experience, spend 3 months learning ML in python and walk out with a job as a Data Scientist - when the reality is what job you can land post-bootcamp is probably going to be based on what experience you had going in. A couple years of experience in analytics, research, finance, or similar plus a DS bootcamp will lead to a very different outcome than 1-2 years of sales or retail + the same bootcamp. But that's not a great sales pitch from the bootcamp org, so its "in 3 Months you'll be a data scientist working on cutting edge ML/AI!" instead of "in 3 months you can probably get an entry level data scientist role if you have 2+ years of relevant experience, or if you're completely new to this a data analyst job where if you work hard and keep your skills up in the mean time you can get a better gig in a year or two!".
- brian_spiering 9y ago
  Galvanize just updated their public placement statistics. They are currently at 81% - https://www.galvanize.com/san-francisco/data-science#outcomes https://www.galvanize.com/san-francisco/data-science#outcome...
finnh 9y ago
Duke Law School maintains a 100% post-graduation employment rate by ... paying its otherwise jobless graduates at the exact moment the statistics are counted. https://abovethelaw.com/2010/06/the-secret-to-100-employed-at-graduation-dukes-bridge-to-practice/ https://abovethelaw.com/2010/06/the-secret-to-100-employed-a...
- bdcravens 9y ago
  Many coding schools also hire graduates as teaching assistants.
  - ThrustVectoring 9y ago
    At the bootcamp I went to, this was below "get a job at Google" and above "get a job at a generic start-up" in desirability. It both paid well and providing excellent networking opportunities.
    - ryancouto 9y ago
      yep ^ it also provided a way to work on your algo/interview questions for a few more months without having to worry about money. the job hunt can take upwards of 3 or 4 months, and it's a lot easier to get a good job if you already have an income.
justanman 9y ago
I'd like to see standardized employment stats from traditional universities.
alehul 9y ago
An HN user's perspective as a Flatiron student, from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11734796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11734796 > One of the things that attracted me to Flatiron School was their audited jobs placement report. Very detailed statistics about how many students graduate, how long it takes them to find jobs, and how much they earn. I've never seen traditional colleges hold themselves to that standard of disclosure. Apparently these phony statistics played a huge role in many student's choices to attend. edit: 'illegitimate' or 'misleading' would apparently be a better choice than 'phony.'
- aczerepinski 9y ago
  That quote is from me, and it’s true that the (apparently illegitimate) stats influenced my decision to attend Flatiron. It’s very possible that I would have made other choices if the numbers looked different. Still, at the end of the day I’m getting a lot more mileage out of my Flatiron experience than I have from any of my three degrees from “real” accredited schools. I really enjoy my job as a dev, and based on the amount of recruiter spam I get, feel that I have lots of flexibility and options should I ever need them. I hope that whatever changes arise from this don’t impede Flatiron from making constant changes to their curriculum, and employing amazing non-certified instructors like the ones I am honored to have studied with.
  - alehul 9y ago
    Just to be super clear, I didn't mean to pass any judgement on the choice of attending nonetheless. Bootcamps seem like a great value and I'm glad to hear you're doing well!
- melanarchy 9y ago
  Disclosure: I worked at Flatiron School from 2014-2016. I just want to point out the the numbers in the audited jobs report were never 'phony'. The report, which was available for download long before the settlement, clearly shows the %s of full-time salaried, full-time contract, part time and self employment used for the totals. My understanding of the settlement is that the AG's office was upset that the quoted numbers in advertisements did not make the type of employment clear and did not make it clear that the average salary included only the employed students who took a full-time salaried position. This was certainly a misleading aspect of the advertising, but a prospective student who downloaded and read the report would have been able to see these numbers clearly.
KeepItWeird 9y ago
How is this an example of how the private industry needs to take over on education? This is the opposite. Proof that you can't let commercial interests override public interests.
Dtrane 9y ago
Disclaimer: Former Flatiron School student here. I'm seeing a lot of comments (and the title) about fake employment stats. There is nowhere in the article that alleges this. FS clearly publishes their jobs report and make it extremely accessible from the homepage of their website. The AG does not dispute any numbers in this jobs report. The main allegations, aside from the SED license, are that they did not clearly state their methods of arriving at these numbers on their marketing materials. While that's true, I have faith that someone who has been thinking seriously about a career change enough to apply to a costly educational program such as Flatiron School would do their research. Based on my experience, I don't find the numbers they report to be surprising. I'm personally more than a year into my first job (was hired almost immediately out of FS at almost exactly their 'average salary') and many if not most of my classmates have a similar experience. Flatiron, like any school, has students who put in the extra effort and students who expect to be successful when they're done just because they showed up every day. Those students tended to struggle throughout the course, and many needed to take internships before landing a full-time gig. When I first looked into Flatiron, I checked the jobs report. When I saw that 52% of grads landed a full-time job, my thought was not 'oh good this school gets me a job.' It was 'I know with relative certainty that I will learn enough to be useful in a full-time junior dev role if I continue to work my ass off.'
throwaway-2942 9y ago
It's no surprise that DevBootcamp and Iron Yard, who recently closed, are not on the list of schools participating in CIRR (www.cirr.org/about). Also no surprise that Flatiron is also not in CIRR. Basically, any bootcamp not in CIRR is shady imho. Full disclosure: I graduated from Hack Reactor in Austin, and got a job 2.5 months after graduation at a very reputable company in town. We also have 3 other HR grads, and a 30-ish person engineering team. This shit works. It's a shame schools like Flatiron drag the industry name down. Pardon the throwaway to not identify myself from my actual account, which has lots of identify-able info.
amigoingtodie 9y ago
Does anyone have a recommendation for a good bootcamp? I have an employee (graphic design) that has shown an aptitude in web development, but I do not have the time to devote to mentoring him. I can afford to send him to a bootcamp, but stories like this make me hesitant. Also, I have a front-end guy and a CS intern, who both could benefit from a SQL bootcamp (as another poster mentioned, team development, source control, and SQL do not seem to be emphasized in the CS curriculum). Is there such a thing? I am only interested in on-site, immersive experiences for all of them.
- tannhauser23 9y ago
  Hack Reactor in SF is great. I did to enable my own career switch, and it was the most intellectually challenging and stimulating experience of my life. (Definitely more so than my college and grad school). It's a 12 week course with focus on full-stack web development, with the final four weeks dedicated to team projects. I recommend the program to anyone who's interested in bootcamps. Hack Reactor recently merged with the Maker Academy, which had locations in SF, LA, and Austin. Not sure what the quality of the other campuses are, but I know that they all use the same syllabus / course material now. Hack Reactor on Market St is the original location. No SQL bootcamp that I'm aware of, however.
- swyx 9y ago
  if you are only interested in onsite you should probably state where you are. i'm at a NY bootcamp and you can get the full details at impostor-syndrome.org
  - amigoingtodie 9y ago
    I am willing to send them out of state, so as long as we are in the contine tal US, it is a possibility.
- busterarm 9y ago
  I did AppAcademy, which seemed to deliver on the job placement rates when I attended (early 2015). They spend about a week on SQL, mostly going through SQL Zoo, and later on you build your own toy clone of ActiveRecord. For me, it was probably the best part of the whole curriculum -- it was the only part that I didn't already have experience in. That said, I have sort of mixed feelings about that bootcamp and the industry as a whole right now. For the right people, on a short schedule, it's great. If you gave those same people the same curriculum for self study, they'd probably get the same out of it though. If your employee is motivated, I'd spend that same money on books and time in their schedule (or pay them for the extra study hours) and the promise of a pay bump if they can get through it and show competence.
s73ver_ 9y ago
It upsets me that they didn't finger the person ultimately responsible for this, and single them out.
jaclaz 9y ago
A side note/question. How did they (both the school/bootcamp and the General Attorney) verify the data? I mean, I go to the bootcamp and give them US$ 15,000 for the course (whether this is a fair amount or not is a distinct matter). I learn something, get a diploma/certificate whatever and that's it, reciprocal obligation are fulfilled, it's not like we became friends or something like that. I then find a job in the field. Why would I: 1) tell them that I found a job in the field (or outside the field for what it matters)? 2) tell them how much I make on that job?
JessRudder 9y ago
The issue isn't fake employment stats. If you read the AG release, the complaint was that "Flatiron did not disclose clearly and conspicuously" what the 98.5% and $75k numbers consisted of. This information was included, in detail, in each of their job reports. This is from their earliest one from December of 2014: "Of the 225 job seeking graduates with salary information available: a. 162 accepted full-time salaried roles, b. Forty-one accepted paid apprenticeships (An apprenticeship is defined as a paid position of defined duration, usually 8-12 weeks, often paid hourly and on a contract basis. Often an apprenticeship is used to evaluate a candidate for full time salaried status), c. Twelve accepted contractor positions (A contractor position is defined as full-time or voluntary part-time, paid at market rate, and without the expectation that the initial rate is temporary and will be re-evaluated in 3-6 months). d. Ten accepted freelance opportunities." "7. Initial compensation for the full-time salaried roles ranged as follows: a. Salary range of $40,000-$59,999 – nine individuals, b. Salary range of $60,000-$69,999 – forty-six individuals, c. Salary range of $70,000-$79,999 – forty-four individuals, d. Salary range of $80,000-$89,999 – thirty-eight individuals, e. Salary range of $90,000+ - nineteen " On the web pages that contained the 98.5% and 74k figures, there was a link to download the report with the detailed data. The AG did not think that was clear enough for consumers - likely because the average consumer isn't going to download and read the details. There's a difference between saying the data wasn't clear enough and the data was fraudulent. In this case, they are not disputing the numbers, they were disputing the marketing around those numbers. Full Disclosure: I am a Flatiron alum and I worked at Flatiron for 3 years. I have problems with the top-level management team and would not work for any of them again. None of my reasons are related to their desire and ability to create great outcomes for the students that come through Flatiron School. I would (and have) recommend the immersive programs to people who want to start careers in web development.
- swyx 9y ago
  excellent response, very fair of you to disclose and defend the parts that you think are worth defending
- rahimnathwani 9y ago
  It seems the headline numbers were intentionally misleading, not just not 'clear enough'.
adamzerner 9y ago
Back in 2014, coding bootcamps were advertising rates in the 90s. See https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-job-placement-rates-at-various-coding-bootcamps https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-job-placement-rates-at-va.... From that post, this is what the director of admissions at Fullstack Academy claims are the job placement rates of some popular bootcamps: - Fullstack Academy: 97% - Hack Reactor: 99% - App Academy: 98% - Dev Bootcamp: 90% - Flatiron School: 98% (He edited his post to take this down literally as I write my comment. Ie. after this article exploded on Hacker News. See the logs for proof: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-job-placement-rates-at-various-coding-bootcamps/answer/Huntly-Mayo-Malasky/log https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-job-placement-rates-at-va.... Here is his original post: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jsek2oum4lioeja/Screen%20Shot%202017-10-17%20at%2010.55.29%20AM.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/jsek2oum4lioeja/Screen%20Shot%2020...) The Quora post doesn't mention it, but I assume these numbers refer to job placement rate within three months. I attended Fullstack Academy back in 2014 and recall being told these numbers by Fullstack, and by all of those other bootcamps (I applied to them too). And I recall all of them referring to job placement rate within three months. I believe there is plenty of evidence that all of this is true. There are plenty of press articles, such as http://www.businessinsider.com/4-traits-that-make-developers-desirable-by-employers-2015-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/4-traits-that-make-developers... corroborating it. And there are thousands of applicants and students who probably remember being told about job placement rates in the upper 90s. Now take a look at the data from CIRR. Below I list the percentage of graduates who are hired as full time employees within 90 days of graduating: - Fullstack Academy (New York City): 30.4% - Hack Reactor (New York): 43.6% See for yourself: https://cirr.org/data https://cirr.org/data. I can only conclude that back when we were all told that the numbers were in the upper 90s, we were either lied to, or intentionally mislead. Credit to them for pushing for transparency with CIRR, but shame on them for lying/intentionally misleading us all for a very, very long time.
- WindyCityBrew 9y ago
  There's other ways of manipulating the numbers too. I attended App Academy, but as an "auditing student" meaning I paid the same price and did the same work but, according to the information, I might not get a pair to program with if the classroom count was odd. However, I'd bet a shiny nickel that auditing students aren't part of their advertised statistics. Or at least auditing students that don't make the numbers better. I "graduated" just fine and found a job at above their salary avg, so who knows if I'm part of their numbers or not. Edit to add: Not trying to say anything bad about AA here, I really enjoyed the program and it has been money well spent. I just wanted to chime in on the topic of "9X% of students make 6 figures after graduation"
josh_carterPDX 9y ago
This is what has always concerned me. A lot of bootcamps are popping up making it hard to figure out which ones are legitimate. On top of that, as a military vet, I have worked hard to figure out how to get the G.I. Bill to be used with these bootcamps. Today, not many qualify because of a number of variables, but mostly include how the curriculum is dynamic. Flatiron is one of the better orgs with a pretty good reputation. It's tough to read that they've fallen short for their students. It causes a lot of anxiety for those trying to utilize these schools to learn coding.
inusan 9y ago
Extemely shady leadership team that treats staff poorly because they think they know it all. Plus they hire a lot of the grass to work on their internal product so it further skews the job claim.
msl341 9y ago
I was a student at Hack Reactor Remote. They were supposed to be one of the best bootcamps. I don't know how they do it, but I feel like their stats are completely false. Most of the members in my cohort are still unemployed and they provide little guidance. They might have been good 5 years ago, but it seems times have changed.
- bdcravens 9y ago
  Do you feel qualified after your bootcamp experience? I think there will always be those with a developer mindset, and even already writing code, that join a bootcamp, and those will be the ones capable of getting hired and being productive. I feel that the bootcamps leverage that to pitch to another group: those who haven't coded before, and want some of that good cheddar. In the end they aren't really ready to professionally exercise those skills without significant hand-holding, which most employers aren't interested in. (Though some may be interested in growing developers with novice-level skills at a beginning salary at 1/2 or less of the typical junior-level)
nradov 9y ago
Why are students willing to pay so much to for-profit coding boot camps? In many areas you can learn the same skills from community colleges and university extensions for far lower tuition. For example in the Bay Area the UCSC Extension has a good reputation and offers several certificate programs in software development. https://www.ucsc-extension.edu/certificate-program/software-development https://www.ucsc-extension.edu/certificate-program/software-...
- FLUX-YOU 9y ago
  I think part of the sell was that the bootcamp had built more specific professional contacts than a community college might have, or had agreements with employers which a community college wouldn't bother with. Community colleges also take longer. That bootcamps produce similar graduates as (community) colleges in less time is up for discussion, but having to fudge your numbers as FlatIron has done doesn't necessarily move the debate in your favor.
- everythingswan 9y ago
  I think the length of the program is a good place to start: 15 weeks full time vs. 9-12 months full-time is a huge difference: https://www.ucsc-extension.edu/certificate-programs?cname=Software%20Engineering%20and%20Quality https://www.ucsc-extension.edu/certificate-programs?cname=So... I know people I've talked to (work with a similar company) feel the weight of family duty very heavily with career decisions. Having children or other family to be responsible for is one of the things that holds people back. Child care is incredibly expensive and having to carry that burden on your own can be very taxing and can get in the way of your work if you're at home. Shorter runway to earn more is a much more desirable option.
- rkho 9y ago
  Hi! I paid $18k to attend Hack Reactor in 2015 because: 1. I got to write code in an environment alongside other equally motivated peers, because let's face it: An $18k commitment is more difficult to let go of than a few credits at a community college 2. Our focus was on writing code and doing things that professional software engineers did, not satisficing or cheating our way towards a letter or percentage grade My tuition also mostly paid for itself with the +$15k they helped me negotiate with my first job.
weatherlight 9y ago
The Dean's letter to the students after the recent settlement Hi Joseph, On Friday the New York Attorney General announced a settlement with Flatiron School. In the press release, they discussed our licensure and our student outcomes. Everyone at Flatiron School and our community has felt this deeply and we wanted to speak to you directly. Regarding our license - we’ve been working with the NY State licensing agency for nearly four years. We were licensed in our Brooklyn location. We also sent in an application for our Manhattan location. It was only when we reached out about an extension for the Manhattan location a year later that we found out that the application was never processed. We immediately filed the appropriate paperwork and have since been licensed by NY State. The second issue was about our student outcomes. We present data on our website in aggregate, such as our 98.5% employment rate for graduates. The Attorney General felt a link labeled “Download our Outcomes Report” next to “98.5% employment rate” taking you to the full breakdown of jobs was not “Clear and Conspicuous”. We understand that in our efforts to be transparent, we exposed ourselves to a new level of scrutiny and we will live up to that in the future. Here’s an example from our settlement: The NYAG finds that Flatiron’s claim that 98.5% of its graduates are employed in the software engineering field within 180 days of graduating, does not clearly and conspicuously disclose that “employed” includes not only full time salaried positions, but also paid apprentices, contract employees and self-employed/freelance employees. This information was available by clicking on the “Download Our Outcomes Report” link and entering an email address in order to download a multi-page report that contains graduation and employment rate information. The NYAG finds that labeling the link “Download Our Outcomes Report” did not sufficiently convey that it contains information relevant to the employment calculation. We're proud of all of you and have shared your success on our website to inspire others. Ultimately, we know that the concerns of our students and community are about the truth of our outcome data. We want to restate, unequivocally, that our reports are accurate and have not been falsified. In fact, the Attorney General explicitly agreed that we can continue using all of our historical reports and you can find them on our website today. That’s really it. We understand how it’s been easy for these important details to become lost in the public discussion around this settlement. We’re most sorry for the way this affects our community of students and alumni. Learning to code is hard enough and thinking of the distraction this causes breaks our hearts. I encourage any alumni reading this to focus on what matters - themselves, their code, their work, and their community. We are going to do everything in our power to make sure this does not blemish your journey. We hope you still feel proud that your journey began at Flatiron School, we still feel it a privilege to have been part of your lives. We will continue teaching passionate people how to code and helping them find the jobs they love. We are excited about the future of the school. If you have any questions about this, please do reach out. We always love to hear from our alumni. Learn, Love, Code // <3 Avi Flombaum and Adam Enbar
EGreg 9y ago
Online schools like Treehouse don't have to worry about local regulations, or pay for a building. Why hasn't capitalism made flipping the classroom a reality?
jthree 9y ago
I wrote a pretty detailed breakdown of why this doesn’t actually mean what you think it means: https://medium.com/@turingschool/why-i-recommend-flatiron-school-c4695a7894b4 https://medium.com/@turingschool/why-i-recommend-flatiron-sc...
- jaf7 9y ago
  Thank you for writing this. As someone who is about to apply to several software schools, the numerous and disparate opinions on HN about their quality / honesty / placement can really affect signal:noise. Sometimes people who appear to work in the industry say things that make it obvious they've done little or no research. Still their statements affect my deliberation even after parsing the numbers as carefully as I can--I'm an outsider making a calculation from a distance. Having followed you for some time since your CodeNewbie interview, I actually trust your words.
obiefernandez 9y ago
I was a hiring manager at a large shop in NYC. During that time I hired and worked with Flatiron School graduates. I know it's just anecdotal evidence, but I found them to be extremely competent, driven and bright, even in comparison to my non-bootcamp people, maybe even more so. Jeff Casimir, admittedly somewhat biased, can lay claim to being one of the world's top experts on running code bootcamps. He has a great writeup about it here: https://medium.com/@turingschool/why-i-recommend-flatiron-school-c4695a7894b4 https://medium.com/@turingschool/why-i-recommend-flatiron-sc... I would give Avi and Flatiron School the benefit of the doubt in this case. I don't think they were out to do anything malicious or fraudulent.
milliondollar 9y ago
What are best options for low cost self study version of these bootcamps? I'm basically retired at 44, live outside of a city, and have time and motivation but need serious instruction. I don't need the employment finding part of this - but really like the structured "real world" focused curriculum vs some of the more academic offerings I've seen online.
jli75 9y ago
Now it's acquired by WeWork.

317 points by anaxag0ras 9y ago

"Under today’s agreement, Flatiron will pay $375,000 in restitution to eligible graduates" That's better than a fine. Though, it does mention 1000 students total, so perhaps not enough.

1_800_UNICORN 9y ago
The school, which has taught approximately 1,000 students, charges students between $12,000 and $15,000 for a 12 to 16 week in-person class and approximately $1,500 a month for online coding classes. Let's assume a very conservative estimate of 800 students doing 1 of online work, and 200 students paying $12k for a class. That works out to $1.2M in online tuition, and $2.4M in in-person tuition. Given how conservative my estimate is, $375k seems like a pittance for operating without a license and lying about success rates.
- sevensor 9y ago
  It's funny, I did the same math and concluded there's no way they profited enough from this scheme to cover the cost of noncompliance. Even if they took $3.6M in revenue, they had to pay salaries, expensive rent, and overhead for 5 years. That's barely scraping by. Hopefully they're sitting on a pile of investor money they can use to pay this settlement.
  - Fergusman 9y ago
    You need to flip the number, the online program is relatively new. The 1,000 taught reflects mostly in-person students.
  - amcooper 9y ago
    You're forgetting the dropouts. For every online student who graduates from Flatiron, there are many—maybe a dozen, maybe more—who drop out. Flatiron bills online students monthly, so they're raking in a good deal of money from dropouts who can't get their money back.
Eridrus 9y ago
On one hand, this is a total pittance, on the other hand the value from getting actual statistics out there is pretty huge. I don't know if reaching a small settlement helped with that, but kudos to the AG for shining some light on the issue.
- tyingq 9y ago
  I'm also happy about it being restitution vs a fine that goes to the government. The latter happens often.
gist 9y ago
And the $375k understates the 'total cost of ownership'. I am sure legal fees ran them anywhere from $50k to several hundred thousand additional.
brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
Bang. You nailed it. So, so far from enough. These students are being told that there is a lack of skilled labor in tech. The city makes a tech-talent pipeline! It seems to the students like a huge opportunity. The news gets Katie Couric on it! And then they are presented with these really positive outcomes that are "verified". It seems like a lot of work to them, but it also looks like real hope. In the end, when the truth is revealed, each eligible student gets only $375? That might be enough for some raw denim. Who cares about any kind of certification? Real penalties for false claims alone would do it. How about providing each student with that salary they signed up to the program for for a full year? I have a feeling the teaching would get a whole lot better and the admissions process would keep the program small and help with individual mentorship. Not only are these programs wasting students' money, but they are eating up their time in a youth-favoring labor landscape. These schools should have to pay hefty restitution to every student who, encouraged by the so-called "verified", robust outcomes, signed up, and who eventually stopped doing their online course mid-program because they correctly assessed the bootcamp's lack of honesty/interest/vigor regarding the post-apocalyptic tundra that is the web-dev software employment landscape for career changers just entering it. If a student/grad gets more employer response from a résumé with the "well-respected" bootcamp removed from it...is that something that gets a bootcamp to hold a school-wide pow-wow to brainstorm ideas on how to approach the issue? Does the director send everyone a sincere and heartfelt apology for that? Are there transparent steps taken to get to the bottom of the issue and change it? No, the problem(s) get buried deep under the suffocating culture of infinite positivity that is designed to mute productive critique (that critique, if encouraged, might inspire positive change). The current students and grads talk to each other and find out just how few employers are interested in bootcamp grads, and of those employers the even smaller group who is interested in bootcamp grads who are also career changers and let's just say "those who are not an obvious culture fit".

Rbatista 9y ago

its getting real

notyourday 9y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UFc1pr2yUU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UFc1pr2yUU

heedlessly2 9y ago

I'm not sure why people think bootcamps are a replacement for a college degree. If you look up the LinkedIn Profiles of successful bootcamp grads, about 99% of the time s/he already had a college degree from somewhere such as Amherst or Duke, plus several years of previous professional employment.

dominotw 9y ago

>Reinvent your career at tech’s most trusted bootcamp If this is "most trusted" , i wonder what shady stuff is going on in other bootcamps.

FLUX-YOU 9y ago
It's just marketing crap. The same way every company says "we're the leading software company doing X". Where is this chart that you're leading? Is your lead verified by someone else?

dopamean 9y ago

Though it may seem obvious to people here (on HN) this is a much bigger problem in the industry than people realize. In many ways these bootcamps are repeating the problems found at trade schools in the past. I taught at one for a year, MakerSquare, and found it to be a rewarding and positive experience however I know people at others, including the company that ended up buying MakerSquare who have had different experiences. When I worked MakerSquare about three years ago they, Hack Reactor, and I think Dev Bootcamp were trying to lead an initiative that would lead to standardized reporting of hiring stats. This was something we were excited about at MakerSquare because our hiring stats were legitimately great at the time and we knew that in many cases this wasn't true of our competitors. When Hack Reactor bought the company it was assuring to see that they were finding similar success. One thing that concerns me today, however, is that I still see ads on Facebook and other places for Hack Reactor's immersive program that report the exact same stats they were reporting three years ago. I find it very, very hard to believe those numbers are still accurate. In fact I'd go so far as to say they must be lying. They expanded their program dramatically through acquisition (MakerSquare and others) and then ramping up a very large "remote" program (a program that follows the same curriculum but taught entirely online). When I left MakerSquare (then acquired by Hack Reactor) I was under the impression that career services were not provided for remote students. They must be messing with the numbers somehow. There needs to be more honesty in the industry because I believe there really is a great opportunity to do good.

PagingCraig 9y ago
I graduated from HR recently and they do have their CIRR reporting stuff and it's pretty well done. They have tried to drag other bootcamps into using the same statistics, but there is no incentive to do that. I can't speak to their advertising and if the new numbers are reflected in that. I can't see bootcamps being around in 5 years without some major changes. P.S. Career services are provided for remote students.
- dopamean 9y ago
  > P.S. Career services are provided for remote students. Good to hear. There was some debate about whether or not to provide services when I was there. I do wonder how effective those services are however. A big part of providing them is relationships with hiring partners in cities. It's a very tough thing to do from afar.

jefftk 9y ago

"Between January and June 2017, Flatiron claimed that 98.5% of its students received employment less than 180 days after graduation and that Flatiron graduates had an average salary of $74,447. However, Flatiron did not disclose clearly and conspicuously that the 98.5% employment rate included not only full time salaried employees but also apprentices, contract employees and self-employed freelance workers, some who were employed for less than twelve weeks. Similarly, Flatiron failed to clearly and conspicuously disclose that its $74,447 average salary claim included full time employed graduates only, which represent only 58% of classroom graduates and 39% of online graduates." Good to crack down on this. "In order to obtain a SED license, a non-degree granting career school must meet a number of criteria, including using an approved curriculum and employing a licensed director and teachers." This is worrying. Part of why these bootcamps have been a valuable addition is that they've been able to use their own curricula and train their own teachers.

fredleblanc 9y ago
Having done some work for a school that's jumped through these hoops, I believe that it's a different definition of "approved." It's not "choose one of these curricula we made up and do that," it's "show us your complete curriculum and defend how this makes a complete program."
- iskander 9y ago
  The response times on approval can be pretty terrible and you get peppered with a lot of dumb requests by reviewers who don't actually understand the material. (I grew up around my parents' vocational school, board of education interactions looked totally insane)
  - kowdermeister 9y ago
    This. I work at a coding bootcamp and last week we decided to include CSS Grids in the syllabus for the advanced HTML/CSS week and this week we are practicing it. This would never be possible if we needed our syllabus accredited.

k8si 9y ago

Funny to look back at this now: https://nyti.ms/2vtd04V https://nyti.ms/2vtd04V NYT on 24 August 2017: "The Flatiron School in New York may have discovered one path. Founded in 2012, Flatiron has a single campus in downtown Manhattan and its main offering is a 15-week immersive coding program with a $15,000 price tag. More than 95 percent of its 1,000 graduates there have landed coding jobs." two months later NY AG, 17 October 2017: "However, Flatiron did not disclose clearly and conspicuously that the 98.5% employment rate included not only full time salaried employees but also apprentices, contract employees and self-employed freelance workers, some who were employed for less than twelve weeks. Similarly, Flatiron failed to clearly and conspicuously disclose that its $74,447 average salary claim included full time employed graduates only, which represent only 58% of classroom graduates and 39% of online graduates."

rdiddly 9y ago
Makes the Times look pretty stupid and/or like shills either unwitting or paid!
- zachwood 9y ago
  Or perhaps, as seen directly in the quote "Flatiron did not disclose clearly and conspicuously...".
- WoodenChair 9y ago
  I don't know why you're being downvoted. The epitome of so-called "fake news" is a newspaper reprinting stats a private corporation provides it in a matter-of-fact tone as the Times did here. Instead of writing, "More than 95 percent of its 1,000 graduates there have landed coding jobs." The Times should've written "Flatiron claims more than 95 percent of its 1,000 graduates there have landed coding jobs." Those two words Flatiron claims are the difference between reporting and restating as fact.
  - andrestan 9y ago
    In fairness to the Times I wouldn't call this fake news; just slightly sloppy reporting. Fake news implies that it's deliberately misleading which this doesn't appear to be. They are simply repeating claims.

lr4444lr 9y ago

I'm not the biggest job-hopper, but I've worked at 3 companies in the last 5 years in the NYC area, and have never once worked with, known anyone who's once worked with, or knew a hiring manager who would even consider someone whose only significant background in software was a coding bootcamp. For those who've experienced it, are they hired out of desperation into firms that need manpower and have enough more senior devs. to get them up to working competency or what?

_jal 9y ago
I've worked with two folks from (Bay Area) bootcamps. Those two were fine junior developers; compare with someone just out of school. One was actually quite a bit better than someone just out of school, because he was a bit older and had real-world experience that filled in a lot of blanks. Not saying that's normal. But my very limited experience with bootcampers has been positive. Yes, they were hired for the same reason bootcamps exist: demand.
erichurkman 9y ago
We have a few folks from bootcamps. For our team, it gives us options into a pool of talent with other non-coding skills and backgrounds. For example, one of our developers from a bootcamp was an accountant, and another was a financial analyst. Both are useful skills for a fin-tech company [eShares].
icahnvalyou 9y ago
In NYC - We brought someone on from a bootcamp a few months ago. He's the best bootcamp grad we talked to BY FAR and everyone more senior wouldn't take less than triple the salary we're all taking. We're a really small team, also.
jasonshen 9y ago
All of the last 3 companies I've worked at in NYC (Percolate, Etsy, and a seed stage startup) have hired multiple engineers straight out of bootcamps. They often were hired into junior roles but if they proved themselves, they would advance. Bootcamp grads are hungry, they're usually taught how to code collaboratively and how to push code to production (skills that are usually less emphasized in CS curriculum). Bootcamps aren't going away and would imagine your experience will be less and less common over time.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

alphonsegaston 9y ago

A while back, Zed Shaw was claiming to have some bootcamp takedown in the works based on dirt from students and insiders. But then nothing ever came of it. Not sure if he was afraid of getting sued or it was just posturing.

geofft 9y ago
This is the same Zed Shaw who believes Python 3 isn't Turing-complete because it's not compatible with Python 2? Why should anyone take him seriously?
- fnovd 9y ago
  I'm not defending all of Shaw's ridiculous critiques of Python 3, but the Turing-complete thing was a joke. The conversation, IIRC, was something like this: ZS: Why can't I import or translate Python2 into Python3? P3: That would be a technically challenging thing to do. ZS: But surely it is technically possible, even if it is pragmatically unfeasible? P3: We can't do it. ZS: OK, Python 3 must be Turing-incomplete, ha ha ha! source: https://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/nopython3.html https://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/nopython3.html
  - geofft 9y ago
    It was definitely not interpreted as a joke by the target audience (people who are new to programming, let alone to the idea of Turing-completeness) - e.g., the third Google result for 'zed shaw turing' is a Reddit thread containing this comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/shittyprogramming/comments/5ejbr9/proof_that_python_3_is_not_turing_complete/dacxlhn/ https://www.reddit.com/r/shittyprogramming/comments/5ejbr9/p... So, I don't know if he was serious and then later edited that page to say it was a joke, or if he meant it as a joke and intended to misteach beginners, or if he meant it as a joke and did not realize he was misteaching beginners, but in all three of those cases, I don't see why he's a person worth listening to, especially on the subject of training programmers.
- alphonsegaston 9y ago
  Never heard about that. Maybe it was all bluster then to promote his own stuff over bootcamps.

ron22 9y ago

Not sure I understand the misleading salary/job type part. Flatirons full jobs report for 2017 is here: Online: https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/69751/2017%20Online%20Outcomes%20Report.pdf https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/69751/2017%20Online%20Outcome... Onsite: https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/69751/NYCJobsReport%20July%202017%20-%20Full.pdf?t=1508207199598 https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/69751/NYCJobsReport%20July%20... Looks like these reports were made before the fine. Inside these reports, salary and job type are broken down and clearly stated. Were these reports altered after the fact?

projectramo 9y ago
I had the same question when I saw those. Before the fine is not before the investigation though. They may have changed those as the investigation started and they got questions about the disclosure. They may have fined them on the basis of the students who went through the program before they made the changes.
throwthisawayt 9y ago
The fine is for the stats that were on places like their website. They didn't define the stats clearly on their site.
- Dtrane 9y ago
  These same stats are the only stats on their website and are only a few clicks from the homepage. I hope that somebody who goes through the entire process of applying to one of these does at least a little due diligence. https://flatironschool.com/outcomes/ https://flatironschool.com/outcomes/

eqmvii 9y ago

The shady employment outcome reporting issue mirrors a problem that has plagued law schools for years. In the worst cases, all 200 or so U.S. law schools would boast about high percentages of students landing 6-figure starting salaries. In reality, schools often only disclosed statistics based on students who completed enrollment surveys. https://www.lawschooltransparency.com https://www.lawschooltransparency.com came about as a resource to try to correct the record, but surely a lot of young people got swept up in the marketing only to discover the real outlook was much more grim.

ghaff 9y ago
It's not surprising that law schools seem to figure prominently in these sorts of stories. They used to be a fairly reliable meal ticket for liberal arts majors who decide it's time to get a real job. These days, especially outside of the very top schools, employment prospects aren't great and neither is pay even for those who do find a position.

unclesaamm 9y ago

I know some folks who graduated from Galvanize's Data Science program. They were told that historically 90% of graduates find jobs in 6 months. She is 6 months out, and only half of her cohort has a job.

csours 9y ago
* Past Performance Is Not Indicative Of Future Results
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  Sure, but you've got bigger problems when... * Past performance may actually be totally made up.
madenine 9y ago
I did a data science program with another org, and while I had an extremely positive experience and got a great job out of it - I do think the sales pitch of these programs can be very misleading, especially to those coming in with less experience. They would have you believe that you can come in with little to no relevant experience, spend 3 months learning ML in python and walk out with a job as a Data Scientist - when the reality is what job you can land post-bootcamp is probably going to be based on what experience you had going in. A couple years of experience in analytics, research, finance, or similar plus a DS bootcamp will lead to a very different outcome than 1-2 years of sales or retail + the same bootcamp. But that's not a great sales pitch from the bootcamp org, so its "in 3 Months you'll be a data scientist working on cutting edge ML/AI!" instead of "in 3 months you can probably get an entry level data scientist role if you have 2+ years of relevant experience, or if you're completely new to this a data analyst job where if you work hard and keep your skills up in the mean time you can get a better gig in a year or two!".
brian_spiering 9y ago
Galvanize just updated their public placement statistics. They are currently at 81% - https://www.galvanize.com/san-francisco/data-science#outcomes https://www.galvanize.com/san-francisco/data-science#outcome...

finnh 9y ago

Duke Law School maintains a 100% post-graduation employment rate by ... paying its otherwise jobless graduates at the exact moment the statistics are counted. https://abovethelaw.com/2010/06/the-secret-to-100-employed-at-graduation-dukes-bridge-to-practice/ https://abovethelaw.com/2010/06/the-secret-to-100-employed-a...

bdcravens 9y ago
Many coding schools also hire graduates as teaching assistants.
- ThrustVectoring 9y ago
  At the bootcamp I went to, this was below "get a job at Google" and above "get a job at a generic start-up" in desirability. It both paid well and providing excellent networking opportunities.
  - ryancouto 9y ago
    yep ^ it also provided a way to work on your algo/interview questions for a few more months without having to worry about money. the job hunt can take upwards of 3 or 4 months, and it's a lot easier to get a good job if you already have an income.

justanman 9y ago

I'd like to see standardized employment stats from traditional universities.

alehul 9y ago

An HN user's perspective as a Flatiron student, from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11734796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11734796 > One of the things that attracted me to Flatiron School was their audited jobs placement report. Very detailed statistics about how many students graduate, how long it takes them to find jobs, and how much they earn. I've never seen traditional colleges hold themselves to that standard of disclosure. Apparently these phony statistics played a huge role in many student's choices to attend. edit: 'illegitimate' or 'misleading' would apparently be a better choice than 'phony.'

aczerepinski 9y ago
That quote is from me, and it’s true that the (apparently illegitimate) stats influenced my decision to attend Flatiron. It’s very possible that I would have made other choices if the numbers looked different. Still, at the end of the day I’m getting a lot more mileage out of my Flatiron experience than I have from any of my three degrees from “real” accredited schools. I really enjoy my job as a dev, and based on the amount of recruiter spam I get, feel that I have lots of flexibility and options should I ever need them. I hope that whatever changes arise from this don’t impede Flatiron from making constant changes to their curriculum, and employing amazing non-certified instructors like the ones I am honored to have studied with.
- alehul 9y ago
  Just to be super clear, I didn't mean to pass any judgement on the choice of attending nonetheless. Bootcamps seem like a great value and I'm glad to hear you're doing well!
melanarchy 9y ago
Disclosure: I worked at Flatiron School from 2014-2016. I just want to point out the the numbers in the audited jobs report were never 'phony'. The report, which was available for download long before the settlement, clearly shows the %s of full-time salaried, full-time contract, part time and self employment used for the totals. My understanding of the settlement is that the AG's office was upset that the quoted numbers in advertisements did not make the type of employment clear and did not make it clear that the average salary included only the employed students who took a full-time salaried position. This was certainly a misleading aspect of the advertising, but a prospective student who downloaded and read the report would have been able to see these numbers clearly.

KeepItWeird 9y ago

How is this an example of how the private industry needs to take over on education? This is the opposite. Proof that you can't let commercial interests override public interests.

Dtrane 9y ago

Disclaimer: Former Flatiron School student here. I'm seeing a lot of comments (and the title) about fake employment stats. There is nowhere in the article that alleges this. FS clearly publishes their jobs report and make it extremely accessible from the homepage of their website. The AG does not dispute any numbers in this jobs report. The main allegations, aside from the SED license, are that they did not clearly state their methods of arriving at these numbers on their marketing materials. While that's true, I have faith that someone who has been thinking seriously about a career change enough to apply to a costly educational program such as Flatiron School would do their research. Based on my experience, I don't find the numbers they report to be surprising. I'm personally more than a year into my first job (was hired almost immediately out of FS at almost exactly their 'average salary') and many if not most of my classmates have a similar experience. Flatiron, like any school, has students who put in the extra effort and students who expect to be successful when they're done just because they showed up every day. Those students tended to struggle throughout the course, and many needed to take internships before landing a full-time gig. When I first looked into Flatiron, I checked the jobs report. When I saw that 52% of grads landed a full-time job, my thought was not 'oh good this school gets me a job.' It was 'I know with relative certainty that I will learn enough to be useful in a full-time junior dev role if I continue to work my ass off.'

throwaway-2942 9y ago

It's no surprise that DevBootcamp and Iron Yard, who recently closed, are not on the list of schools participating in CIRR (www.cirr.org/about). Also no surprise that Flatiron is also not in CIRR. Basically, any bootcamp not in CIRR is shady imho. Full disclosure: I graduated from Hack Reactor in Austin, and got a job 2.5 months after graduation at a very reputable company in town. We also have 3 other HR grads, and a 30-ish person engineering team. This shit works. It's a shame schools like Flatiron drag the industry name down. Pardon the throwaway to not identify myself from my actual account, which has lots of identify-able info.

amigoingtodie 9y ago

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good bootcamp? I have an employee (graphic design) that has shown an aptitude in web development, but I do not have the time to devote to mentoring him. I can afford to send him to a bootcamp, but stories like this make me hesitant. Also, I have a front-end guy and a CS intern, who both could benefit from a SQL bootcamp (as another poster mentioned, team development, source control, and SQL do not seem to be emphasized in the CS curriculum). Is there such a thing? I am only interested in on-site, immersive experiences for all of them.

tannhauser23 9y ago
Hack Reactor in SF is great. I did to enable my own career switch, and it was the most intellectually challenging and stimulating experience of my life. (Definitely more so than my college and grad school). It's a 12 week course with focus on full-stack web development, with the final four weeks dedicated to team projects. I recommend the program to anyone who's interested in bootcamps. Hack Reactor recently merged with the Maker Academy, which had locations in SF, LA, and Austin. Not sure what the quality of the other campuses are, but I know that they all use the same syllabus / course material now. Hack Reactor on Market St is the original location. No SQL bootcamp that I'm aware of, however.
swyx 9y ago
if you are only interested in onsite you should probably state where you are. i'm at a NY bootcamp and you can get the full details at impostor-syndrome.org
- amigoingtodie 9y ago
  I am willing to send them out of state, so as long as we are in the contine tal US, it is a possibility.
busterarm 9y ago
I did AppAcademy, which seemed to deliver on the job placement rates when I attended (early 2015). They spend about a week on SQL, mostly going through SQL Zoo, and later on you build your own toy clone of ActiveRecord. For me, it was probably the best part of the whole curriculum -- it was the only part that I didn't already have experience in. That said, I have sort of mixed feelings about that bootcamp and the industry as a whole right now. For the right people, on a short schedule, it's great. If you gave those same people the same curriculum for self study, they'd probably get the same out of it though. If your employee is motivated, I'd spend that same money on books and time in their schedule (or pay them for the extra study hours) and the promise of a pay bump if they can get through it and show competence.

s73ver_ 9y ago

It upsets me that they didn't finger the person ultimately responsible for this, and single them out.

jaclaz 9y ago

A side note/question. How did they (both the school/bootcamp and the General Attorney) verify the data? I mean, I go to the bootcamp and give them US$ 15,000 for the course (whether this is a fair amount or not is a distinct matter). I learn something, get a diploma/certificate whatever and that's it, reciprocal obligation are fulfilled, it's not like we became friends or something like that. I then find a job in the field. Why would I: 1) tell them that I found a job in the field (or outside the field for what it matters)? 2) tell them how much I make on that job?

JessRudder 9y ago

The issue isn't fake employment stats. If you read the AG release, the complaint was that "Flatiron did not disclose clearly and conspicuously" what the 98.5% and $75k numbers consisted of. This information was included, in detail, in each of their job reports. This is from their earliest one from December of 2014: "Of the 225 job seeking graduates with salary information available: a. 162 accepted full-time salaried roles, b. Forty-one accepted paid apprenticeships (An apprenticeship is defined as a paid position of defined duration, usually 8-12 weeks, often paid hourly and on a contract basis. Often an apprenticeship is used to evaluate a candidate for full time salaried status), c. Twelve accepted contractor positions (A contractor position is defined as full-time or voluntary part-time, paid at market rate, and without the expectation that the initial rate is temporary and will be re-evaluated in 3-6 months). d. Ten accepted freelance opportunities." "7. Initial compensation for the full-time salaried roles ranged as follows: a. Salary range of $40,000-$59,999 – nine individuals, b. Salary range of $60,000-$69,999 – forty-six individuals, c. Salary range of $70,000-$79,999 – forty-four individuals, d. Salary range of $80,000-$89,999 – thirty-eight individuals, e. Salary range of $90,000+ - nineteen " On the web pages that contained the 98.5% and 74k figures, there was a link to download the report with the detailed data. The AG did not think that was clear enough for consumers - likely because the average consumer isn't going to download and read the details. There's a difference between saying the data wasn't clear enough and the data was fraudulent. In this case, they are not disputing the numbers, they were disputing the marketing around those numbers. Full Disclosure: I am a Flatiron alum and I worked at Flatiron for 3 years. I have problems with the top-level management team and would not work for any of them again. None of my reasons are related to their desire and ability to create great outcomes for the students that come through Flatiron School. I would (and have) recommend the immersive programs to people who want to start careers in web development.

swyx 9y ago
excellent response, very fair of you to disclose and defend the parts that you think are worth defending
rahimnathwani 9y ago
It seems the headline numbers were intentionally misleading, not just not 'clear enough'.

adamzerner 9y ago

Back in 2014, coding bootcamps were advertising rates in the 90s. See https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-job-placement-rates-at-various-coding-bootcamps https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-job-placement-rates-at-va.... From that post, this is what the director of admissions at Fullstack Academy claims are the job placement rates of some popular bootcamps: - Fullstack Academy: 97% - Hack Reactor: 99% - App Academy: 98% - Dev Bootcamp: 90% - Flatiron School: 98% (He edited his post to take this down literally as I write my comment. Ie. after this article exploded on Hacker News. See the logs for proof: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-job-placement-rates-at-various-coding-bootcamps/answer/Huntly-Mayo-Malasky/log https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-job-placement-rates-at-va.... Here is his original post: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jsek2oum4lioeja/Screen%20Shot%202017-10-17%20at%2010.55.29%20AM.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/jsek2oum4lioeja/Screen%20Shot%2020...) The Quora post doesn't mention it, but I assume these numbers refer to job placement rate within three months. I attended Fullstack Academy back in 2014 and recall being told these numbers by Fullstack, and by all of those other bootcamps (I applied to them too). And I recall all of them referring to job placement rate within three months. I believe there is plenty of evidence that all of this is true. There are plenty of press articles, such as http://www.businessinsider.com/4-traits-that-make-developers-desirable-by-employers-2015-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/4-traits-that-make-developers... corroborating it. And there are thousands of applicants and students who probably remember being told about job placement rates in the upper 90s. Now take a look at the data from CIRR. Below I list the percentage of graduates who are hired as full time employees within 90 days of graduating: - Fullstack Academy (New York City): 30.4% - Hack Reactor (New York): 43.6% See for yourself: https://cirr.org/data https://cirr.org/data. I can only conclude that back when we were all told that the numbers were in the upper 90s, we were either lied to, or intentionally mislead. Credit to them for pushing for transparency with CIRR, but shame on them for lying/intentionally misleading us all for a very, very long time.

WindyCityBrew 9y ago
There's other ways of manipulating the numbers too. I attended App Academy, but as an "auditing student" meaning I paid the same price and did the same work but, according to the information, I might not get a pair to program with if the classroom count was odd. However, I'd bet a shiny nickel that auditing students aren't part of their advertised statistics. Or at least auditing students that don't make the numbers better. I "graduated" just fine and found a job at above their salary avg, so who knows if I'm part of their numbers or not. Edit to add: Not trying to say anything bad about AA here, I really enjoyed the program and it has been money well spent. I just wanted to chime in on the topic of "9X% of students make 6 figures after graduation"

josh_carterPDX 9y ago

This is what has always concerned me. A lot of bootcamps are popping up making it hard to figure out which ones are legitimate. On top of that, as a military vet, I have worked hard to figure out how to get the G.I. Bill to be used with these bootcamps. Today, not many qualify because of a number of variables, but mostly include how the curriculum is dynamic. Flatiron is one of the better orgs with a pretty good reputation. It's tough to read that they've fallen short for their students. It causes a lot of anxiety for those trying to utilize these schools to learn coding.

inusan 9y ago

Extemely shady leadership team that treats staff poorly because they think they know it all. Plus they hire a lot of the grass to work on their internal product so it further skews the job claim.

msl341 9y ago

I was a student at Hack Reactor Remote. They were supposed to be one of the best bootcamps. I don't know how they do it, but I feel like their stats are completely false. Most of the members in my cohort are still unemployed and they provide little guidance. They might have been good 5 years ago, but it seems times have changed.

bdcravens 9y ago
Do you feel qualified after your bootcamp experience? I think there will always be those with a developer mindset, and even already writing code, that join a bootcamp, and those will be the ones capable of getting hired and being productive. I feel that the bootcamps leverage that to pitch to another group: those who haven't coded before, and want some of that good cheddar. In the end they aren't really ready to professionally exercise those skills without significant hand-holding, which most employers aren't interested in. (Though some may be interested in growing developers with novice-level skills at a beginning salary at 1/2 or less of the typical junior-level)

nradov 9y ago

Why are students willing to pay so much to for-profit coding boot camps? In many areas you can learn the same skills from community colleges and university extensions for far lower tuition. For example in the Bay Area the UCSC Extension has a good reputation and offers several certificate programs in software development. https://www.ucsc-extension.edu/certificate-program/software-development https://www.ucsc-extension.edu/certificate-program/software-...

FLUX-YOU 9y ago
I think part of the sell was that the bootcamp had built more specific professional contacts than a community college might have, or had agreements with employers which a community college wouldn't bother with. Community colleges also take longer. That bootcamps produce similar graduates as (community) colleges in less time is up for discussion, but having to fudge your numbers as FlatIron has done doesn't necessarily move the debate in your favor.
everythingswan 9y ago
I think the length of the program is a good place to start: 15 weeks full time vs. 9-12 months full-time is a huge difference: https://www.ucsc-extension.edu/certificate-programs?cname=Software%20Engineering%20and%20Quality https://www.ucsc-extension.edu/certificate-programs?cname=So... I know people I've talked to (work with a similar company) feel the weight of family duty very heavily with career decisions. Having children or other family to be responsible for is one of the things that holds people back. Child care is incredibly expensive and having to carry that burden on your own can be very taxing and can get in the way of your work if you're at home. Shorter runway to earn more is a much more desirable option.
rkho 9y ago
Hi! I paid $18k to attend Hack Reactor in 2015 because: 1. I got to write code in an environment alongside other equally motivated peers, because let's face it: An $18k commitment is more difficult to let go of than a few credits at a community college 2. Our focus was on writing code and doing things that professional software engineers did, not satisficing or cheating our way towards a letter or percentage grade My tuition also mostly paid for itself with the +$15k they helped me negotiate with my first job.

weatherlight 9y ago

The Dean's letter to the students after the recent settlement Hi Joseph, On Friday the New York Attorney General announced a settlement with Flatiron School. In the press release, they discussed our licensure and our student outcomes. Everyone at Flatiron School and our community has felt this deeply and we wanted to speak to you directly. Regarding our license - we’ve been working with the NY State licensing agency for nearly four years. We were licensed in our Brooklyn location. We also sent in an application for our Manhattan location. It was only when we reached out about an extension for the Manhattan location a year later that we found out that the application was never processed. We immediately filed the appropriate paperwork and have since been licensed by NY State. The second issue was about our student outcomes. We present data on our website in aggregate, such as our 98.5% employment rate for graduates. The Attorney General felt a link labeled “Download our Outcomes Report” next to “98.5% employment rate” taking you to the full breakdown of jobs was not “Clear and Conspicuous”. We understand that in our efforts to be transparent, we exposed ourselves to a new level of scrutiny and we will live up to that in the future. Here’s an example from our settlement: The NYAG finds that Flatiron’s claim that 98.5% of its graduates are employed in the software engineering field within 180 days of graduating, does not clearly and conspicuously disclose that “employed” includes not only full time salaried positions, but also paid apprentices, contract employees and self-employed/freelance employees. This information was available by clicking on the “Download Our Outcomes Report” link and entering an email address in order to download a multi-page report that contains graduation and employment rate information. The NYAG finds that labeling the link “Download Our Outcomes Report” did not sufficiently convey that it contains information relevant to the employment calculation. We're proud of all of you and have shared your success on our website to inspire others. Ultimately, we know that the concerns of our students and community are about the truth of our outcome data. We want to restate, unequivocally, that our reports are accurate and have not been falsified. In fact, the Attorney General explicitly agreed that we can continue using all of our historical reports and you can find them on our website today. That’s really it. We understand how it’s been easy for these important details to become lost in the public discussion around this settlement. We’re most sorry for the way this affects our community of students and alumni. Learning to code is hard enough and thinking of the distraction this causes breaks our hearts. I encourage any alumni reading this to focus on what matters - themselves, their code, their work, and their community. We are going to do everything in our power to make sure this does not blemish your journey. We hope you still feel proud that your journey began at Flatiron School, we still feel it a privilege to have been part of your lives. We will continue teaching passionate people how to code and helping them find the jobs they love. We are excited about the future of the school. If you have any questions about this, please do reach out. We always love to hear from our alumni. Learn, Love, Code // <3 Avi Flombaum and Adam Enbar

EGreg 9y ago

Online schools like Treehouse don't have to worry about local regulations, or pay for a building. Why hasn't capitalism made flipping the classroom a reality?

jthree 9y ago

I wrote a pretty detailed breakdown of why this doesn’t actually mean what you think it means: https://medium.com/@turingschool/why-i-recommend-flatiron-school-c4695a7894b4 https://medium.com/@turingschool/why-i-recommend-flatiron-sc...

jaf7 9y ago
Thank you for writing this. As someone who is about to apply to several software schools, the numerous and disparate opinions on HN about their quality / honesty / placement can really affect signal:noise. Sometimes people who appear to work in the industry say things that make it obvious they've done little or no research. Still their statements affect my deliberation even after parsing the numbers as carefully as I can--I'm an outsider making a calculation from a distance. Having followed you for some time since your CodeNewbie interview, I actually trust your words.

obiefernandez 9y ago

I was a hiring manager at a large shop in NYC. During that time I hired and worked with Flatiron School graduates. I know it's just anecdotal evidence, but I found them to be extremely competent, driven and bright, even in comparison to my non-bootcamp people, maybe even more so. Jeff Casimir, admittedly somewhat biased, can lay claim to being one of the world's top experts on running code bootcamps. He has a great writeup about it here: https://medium.com/@turingschool/why-i-recommend-flatiron-school-c4695a7894b4 https://medium.com/@turingschool/why-i-recommend-flatiron-sc... I would give Avi and Flatiron School the benefit of the doubt in this case. I don't think they were out to do anything malicious or fraudulent.

milliondollar 9y ago

What are best options for low cost self study version of these bootcamps? I'm basically retired at 44, live outside of a city, and have time and motivation but need serious instruction. I don't need the employment finding part of this - but really like the structured "real world" focused curriculum vs some of the more academic offerings I've seen online.

jli75 9y ago

Now it's acquired by WeWork.