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The bootcamp model doesn’t seem like it would work well in a recession since new grads end up competing for any open positions with laid off people with more ex
by tempsy 7y ago
The bootcamp model doesn’t seem like it would work well in a recession since new grads end up competing for any open positions with laid off people with more experience. I can’t imagine that Lambda would be able to place as many students now as they did before all else being equal and if they tried to sell their ISAs to a financing firm of course they are going to account for the new reality and request a much steeper discount than they did before.
If you’re thinking of Lambda as a student then even if you don’t have to pay tuition you still have all your living costs to think about. Probably does not make sense do Lambda if you would otherwise be leaving a job and dig into savings and then enter a questionable job market.
- gnicholas 7y agoIn some ways, the ISA bootcamps would be in the most demand during a recession. Because you don't pay for tuition outright, you're only paying with your time/opportunity cost. For someone who's laid off, that just became free. And if you don't get hired for a year because the economy is frozen/thawing, then you don't have to pay anything during that period. If I were looking at bootcamps, I would put ISA-based ones at the top of my list. But I'd expect them to get more selective since they'll need to adjust their payback calculus given the economic uncertainty.
- PopeDotNinja 7y agoThe conventional wisdom used to be that many people would go back to school during a recession. I certainly did that in after getting laid off in the tail end of the dotcom bust. The timing of getting a degree during a normal recession cycle might work out simply because 1 or 2 years after you start school, you might be graduating when there's no longer a recession and hiring has picked up again. If you go to a 3 month bootcamp during a recession, you're likely to face a recession when finishing the program.
- thaumasiotes 7y agoAn interesting implication of this line of thought is that a lot of the value of getting a degree during a recession is not so much the degree as having something respectable to say you were doing with your time.
- pm_me_ur_fullzz 7y agoI never thought of it that way, are you sure? I think people just thought the degree would be there forever, but instead they are just paying it off forever - in the states.
- PopeDotNinja 7y agoI'm still paying my off :P
- thaumasiotes 7y agoBeing more explicit: 1. In the hot market, you can spend multiple years getting a degree, or you can spend a few months at a bootcamp. At the conclusion of either process, you get a job. By hypothesis, the bootcamp provides as much value in terms of knowledge as the degree does. (Just go with it.) The bootcamp is much better, because you waste less time not having a job. It's cheaper in cash outflow, but it's even more cheaper in opportunity cost. 2. In the depressed market, you can spend multiple years getting a degree, or you can spend a few months at a bootcamp. After a couple of years, the market is no longer depressed, and you get a job. By happy coincidence, if you got the degree, you go on the market at this time, and you look employable. If you did the bootcamp, it's still just as good, but you've been unemployed for a couple of years, and you look unemployable. The bootcamp had a higher opportunity cost than the degree. (Still lower cash outflow.) In this case, the only reason you'd want the degree is so that, when you interview for a job that chooses to hire you for unrelated reasons having to do with the overall health of the economy, you don't have to admit to having been unemployed. If the cash price of bootcamp is 20% of the cash price of the degree, then this respectability concern is at least 80% of the value of the degree. More, if you assume it's generally nicer to be unemployed than to be studying for a degree.
- alexhutcheson 7y agoLambda’s programs are 9+ months.