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Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes
- kadomony 6y agoAgreed. Austen Allred is notoriously terrible on Twitter, too. Constant snark, immediately blocking people who point out the predatory business model, and shamelessly holding himself up like some gift to could-be coders. Dude’s just a thief. Even the way they handle their comms internally is hilariously bad to read about. Gives me the same vibes as the chick from AWAY that finally was forced to step down.
- mimikatz 6y agoWhen they mix criticism with politics I don’t trust the author. It makes it seem tribal. Like attack the enemy for their politics.
- sandofsky 6y agoA few Twitter bots brought this submission to attention. If you don't have much background, here are some good starting points: https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/11/21131848/lambda-school-coding-bootcamp-isa-tuition-cost-free https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/11/21131848/lambda-school-co... https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/lambda-schools-job-placement-rate-is-lower-than-claimed.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/lambda-schools-job-p... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25415017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25415017
- hobom 6y agoI think your tweet is in bad faith. Whatever the CEO thinks of Amazon warehouse workers' salary and working conditions has no bearing on the quality and outcomes of the lambda school curriculum. This Twitter style argument of "Look at this person having awful opinions" really does not contribute to anything. If you find lambda school to be predatory, then it's better to just provide evidence for that.
- sandofsky 6y ago> If you find lambda school to be predatory, then it's better to just provide evidence for that. I literally just cited three links full of examples.
- fighterpilot 6y agoThey said it's better to just provide evidence for that, which you didn't. You mixed personal political opinion with the factual question of whether the school's practices are predatory, which makes it more difficult to give you the benefit of the doubt that the claim was made in good faith.
- austenallred 6y agoYou are the source of one of the articles citing the many things that Lambda School grads should know for a basic interview that we don’t teach. In the past I have offered a bounty for you to point out even a single one of those things and you have never been able to do so.
- akanet 6y agoAusten unblock me on twitter. We can have an OTR chat about the current state of lambda. I promise none of it will be published if you don't want it to be.
- austenallred 6y agoSorry, you’ve lied too many times and misconstrued too many things. I don’t trust you and don’t believe you’re operating in good faith.
- akanet 6y agoI really haven't, maybe we can work out this misunderstanding. I think you really do need to hear a sincere perspective from the other side and I am happy to provide this for you privately. Reach out anytime!
- potions 6y agoLambda School seems questionable for a few reasons I was already aware of as a semi-habitual hirer of bootcampers: trying to scale too fast & degrading the product, possibly disaligned incentives if ISAs are sold off immediately, etc. If I weren't aware of these issues, this tweet/thread would not have taught me about them. However -- "Naturally they're partnered with Amazon"...to get people jobs as programmers at Amazon(who are evil I guess?? The unspoken assumption?) does not seem like a problem. It is difficult for me to imagine thinking an entry-level FAANG(even Amazon dot com, the lowliest FAANG where few HN posters would deign to work) programming job is not a golden ticket 99th percentile outcome for any bootcamper. The twootist subsequently implies Austen is out of touch for thinking there are towns where an Amazon FC job @$15/hr + healthcare is a "holy shit amazing" job. This is true tons of places. It's double minimum wage! Affordable healthcare! If Amazon FC isn't a good job, and Amazon Programmer isn't a good job, what is? Are there bootcamps putting people directly into Netflix, Stripe, Jane Street, etc?
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- smegma2 6y agoI find it surprising that they sell their ISAs (it seems to be true based on a quick look at this https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/12/21135134/lambda-school-students-edly-isa-debt-swapping-partnership-shares-investors https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/12/21135134/lambda-school-st...). Doesn't this look bad to prospective students? It implies that they don't think that they'll pay off. Is there a good faith explanation for this?
- ec109685 6y agoI think the charitable explanation is that they needed the funds now versus after the student gets their job.
- Jasper_ 6y agoSo they're incentivized to inflate their graduation rates to sell off the ISAs to investors who don't know better, since they need the cash now. Investors are left with a bill of goods: ISAs that will never pay out. Add in some securitization and tranches and baby, you've got a 2008 financial crisis goin'!
- peter_retief 6y agoOh no I actually thought it was a really good idea to give people a chance to work hard and get a better life. I still dont completely write it off as a bad idea. I mentioned it to my son but he was sceptical.
- jpindar 6y agoI think it could be a good idea, if it were run by an existing organization that was already financially successful and didn't need to optimize for growth or cash flow, such as a university or one of the existing MOOC providers.
- peter_retief 6y agoI deleted this comment but it seems to be lingering?
- seriousquestion 6y agoColleges are predatory, putting kids deep into debt that they may never be able to repay and can't even remove with bankruptcy. And said debt has exploded in recent decades with no corresponding improvement in outcomes. Whereas Lambda aligns their interests with the student. If their students don't get a job, Lambda doesn't get paid. Why is a better model being attacked like this?
- sandofsky 6y ago> Colleges are predatory, putting kids deep into debt that they may never be able to repay and can't even remove with bankruptcy. We're not talking about colleges. The fact other scams exist in the world has zero bearing on whether one specific company is scamming people. > Whereas Lambda aligns their interests with the student. They align themselves with their investors. That's their fiduciary duty. If you want to understand how their model doesn't necessary align with students, here's a good starting point: https://applieddivinitystudies.com/lambda-lies/ https://applieddivinitystudies.com/lambda-lies/ > If their students don't get a job, Lambda doesn't get paid. When a student signs an ISA, Lambda School is immediately paid by reselling that debt to hedge funds.
- exporectomy 6y agoWe are implicitly comparing it to colleges and every other competitor. That's what relative words like the way "predatory" is used here mean. Predatory relative to the rest of the field. It doesn't really have an absolute meaning.
- slow_donkey 6y agoI haven't reviewed their numbers recently but the historical criticism is that you end up paying more money for Lambda yet their placement rate was lower compared to similar bootcamps.
- qPM9l3XJrF 6y agoWould you say Santa Clara University is a "predatory university" if the average tuition is higher than UC Berkeley, yet the starting salary of their grads is lower?
- dayaz36 6y agoA tweet with no explanation, just random accusations. Not sure why this is even being shared.
- FlyingSnake 6y agoThe author posted some more details on this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26803218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26803218
- dayaz36 6y agoHN constantly attacks Tesla and Elon so you shouldn't be surprised. In fact, I've associated negative attacks from HN as an indicator that the company/person being attacked is probably doing something good.
- qPM9l3XJrF 6y agoIt's fascinating to me how much crabs-in-the-bucket syndrome this place has acquired over the past few years. It's hard to think of successful people HN doesn't hate.
- mettamage 6y agoI am not that quick on hating successful people. There are more of us on HN. I find it interesting to read the other side.
- dang 6y agoHN is divided on divisive issues. It's that simple. People overgeneralize about that because of cognitive bias: the bad (what you don't like) stands out more than the good (what you agree with). What's negative (to you) is what you're more likely to notice: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... That's why people with the opposite tastes make the opposite generalizations. For every comment like yours ("constantly attacks Tesla and Elon") there's one of these: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26506294 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26506294 ("Musk fanboys and Tesla apologists"). We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26803359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26803359.
- dayaz36 6y agoWe're not allowed to criticize HN? I'm not sure which rules I was breaking? I simply gave my opinion on a pattern I've noticed on HN. You're censoring me because you disagree?
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- throwawaysea 6y agoI’m not sure who this works is or why his seemingly shallow tweets are important to pay attention to. Can someone explain? Surely criticizing Lambda is far less useful than criticizing the university system, which provides far worse outcomes for far more money?
- WoodenChair 6y ago> Surely criticizing Lambda is far less useful than criticizing the university system, which provides far worse outcomes for far more money? You have to compare apples to apples. The university system encompasses far more than Lambda school. I think a fair comparison would be how well does the average person with a degree in CS or Software Engineering from a university do (or even maybe a community college so the timespan is closer to a boot camp)? In my experience the answer is very well.
- ghufran_syed 6y agoand how do the people who drop out of a university with student loans but no degree do? If you drop out of lambda school, or even if you graduate but don’t make 50k / year in a tech job, you pay nothing.
- WoodenChair 6y agoObviously, not well. We would have to do statistical analysis on the outcomes of everyone who did lambda school and everyone who did traditional CS at community colleges to reach any kind of meaningful conclusion. My main point is that comparing to the whole university system is pointless. Also, if we narrowed our focus to community colleges, they're typically very inexpensive and free for low-income students.
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- agd 6y agoAs someone who used to work in this industry, I'm kind of torn on Lambda School. It's clear that Austen lied in the past about outcomes and the company perhaps preferred growth over customer experience early on. However college education is so broken in the US that any alternative can look good in comparison. Long term I'm bullish on Lambda, they're in a rapidly growing market, signing good partnerships like this, and I think they can continue to work on their training quality. Just don't trust the marketing. ;)
- konaraddi 6y ago> Long term I'm bullish on Lambda How long is your long term? I’m bullish on Lambda’s current business model in the short term because in the long term it’s not fair for job-seekers to sell a chunk of their future just so they can make it through the present and arrive at the future. Wealthy people don’t have to do that. And the impoverished can’t afford to spend the time to attend Lambda school. Education should be as accessible as possible and I’m optimistic that it will be on the long term. Lambda school is progress but it’s not the end game.
- cupofcoffee 6y agoWhy is college education broken in the US? If one is doing a STEM degree then they can earn enough salary to pay for their loans and live happily ever after. Isn't the issue when either international students come and invest thousands of dollars in university fees and are then unceremoniously kicked out of the country or students which study some field which has no high employability?
- 908B64B197 6y ago> However college education is so broken in the US that any alternative can look good in comparison. How exactly?
- austenallred 6y agoI absolutely never lied about outcomes. The author of the story conflated multiple numbers (one graduation -> placement, one enrollment -> placement) and pointed out that they’re different. He was looking at different points in the funnel, as our audited outcomes reports show.
- fighterpilot 6y agoWhat's so bad about selling the debt to hedge funds? It's a way for Lambda to reduce temporal risk by paying a risk premium as compensation to the hedge fund.
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- hermitsings 6y agoThanks
- runno 6y agoI think part of the problem is the funnel. They don't charge students until a month in. They start off with a large number of student who they anticipate will drop before the ISA kicks in, then they prorate the ISA, although not evenly. The count should probably start once the ISA kicks in, even if the student doesn't get through the entire program. Fair enough right? Otherwise do not charge students unless they graduate. I think they aren't transparent about how the count/ outcomes are measured. My biggest concern with the program, however, is the instruction and the lack of one on one feedback with qualified people. The other concern is will their desire to fill diversity quotas. Perhaps this is coming from the market, demanding certain races in hiring, but in my personal experience, highly qualified people who can easily pass the entry exam were denied the female scholarship and given to racially diverse woman who couldn't pass the entry exam. Also, the founder tweeted out that over 50% of their students surveyed were LGBTQ like that was a goal of some kind. I think Lambda is more concerned with racial quotas than training software engineers. So if you want a token hire look towards Lambda.
- toomuchredbull 6y agoHow is it predatory if they don't charge any money upfront?
- sandofsky 6y agoSome students pay up front. But if you want to focus on the ISA, the terms are for five years. If the program delivers no value, you only get out ahead if you decide to give up programming until it expires. Imagine the program failing you, you decide to pursue an associate's degree, and still owing them money.
- austenallred 6y agoImagine a degree failing you and owing money plus interest literally no matter what happens
- sandofsky 6y agoAgain, you're trying to change the topic. We are not talking about colleges. We're talking about whether ISAs can fail, and they can. But to answer your question, I have two relatives that successfully discharged their student debt due to financial hardships. ISAs have no similar process, short of hiring a lawyer and hoping for the best.
- austenallred 6y agoWe have a hardship process as well. If there were a way to design a perfect financial instrument we would - we get as close as we possibly can. You have to construct a chain of what-ifs to generate a scenario as bad as what is the default everywhere else (and it’s still better), yet you are constantly yelling about how evil we are. Perhaps just re-examine your priors?
- sandofsky 6y agoLet's talk about some concrete evils, then. How many students have you pressured into signing NDAs as part of your "hardship process"?
- guru4consulting 6y agoMy friend is doing course in Lambda School.. occasionally asks for my help with some of the course work. Almost all of the Lambda school's sample code is terrible. They proudly claim that their bootcamp enables people from other trades (plumbers, janitors, etc) to become programmers. And their example data to teach the concept of array/index would look something like array=[1,2,3,4,5], index of 1 is 0, and index of 2 is 1. The concept of an index starting at zero is so native to regular programmers, but for someone who has done their first helloworld in their life, imagine the confusion caused by the above example code. I get furious when looking at each of their examples. At some point, I advised my friend to dropout of course, but Lambda School has penalty of around $20k-$30 if she drops out in middle of course. I wish they either update their course to be beginner friendly, or just get banned for ruining the fun of learning programming.
- chriselles 6y agoI’ve had experience with both Lambda and Amazon. Everyone working as an Associate in an Amazon distribution/fulfilment Center from 20 or more years ago would have accrued well over $5m in stock options and units today. That’s for unskilled entry level work, at a much lower than current hourly wage, and assuming the stock wasn’t sold early(which it almost always was from my perspective). Everyone attending Lambda has an opportunity to learn and up skill, but it is extremely rough and messy, much like Amazon’s early days. Turnover/attrition for both Amazon and Lambda would be quite high. So the dream is real, but the reality is considerable challenge. Amazon’s full-time headcount growth is still extremely high(1.3m compared to 575k just 2 years ago). Lambda has had a few students get hired by Amazon, so it’s in their best interest to link their brand to big tech brands. People like sausages, but watching how sausages get made can be distasteful for some or many.
- ghufran_syed 6y agoI had a family member do lambda school recently, they got an “apprentice software engineer” job immediately after graduation, and this is someone who probably would NOT have done well going to college. YMMV
- wdb 6y agoSo they are charging Oxford level tuition fees but it's it worth those prices? Do you get a similar recognition with your Lambda School paper/diploma? Assuming you need to pay the international Oxford fees. Personally, I am not convinced it's worth it