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Are there any legit income-sharing schools of this type, tech or otherwise? Done fairly, it sounds like an interesting alternative to upfront tuition. On the s

Are there any legit income-sharing schools of this type, tech or otherwise? Done fairly, it sounds like an interesting alternative to upfront tuition. On the surface it doesn't seem like a bad model, but of course it could be twisted to evil ends. From the article: > The loans carry substantial risk, as a single missed payment triggers a default and the remainder of the $30,000 “cap” becomes due immediately. > Students were therefore deprived of rights they should have had when their “income share” loan was sold to an investor [without the required Holder Rule provisions transferring legal responsibilities to the new owners].

jimberlage 3y ago
App Academy (in a much hotter 2013 job market) honored its 10% of my first year’s salary ISA when I attended. Anecdotally from my cohort, they worked with people on missed payments without triggering a balloon repayment.
LamaOfRuin 3y ago
The income based repayment plans for federal student loans are not that different (but without most of the sketchy practices). The fact that those are an option for accredited schools means I think it would be hard to make it work in a program like this. Especially if there is any sort of venture interest expecting actual returns. Actually educating people well is not cheap and I have not seen any of these programs that actually do anything innovative either.
- solardev 3y ago
  > income based repayment plans for federal student loans Ah, I didn't realize that was a thing. That makes sense, thank you!
jswartz 3y ago
> I attended Launch School and found the founder and the program to be of high quality and integrity and the success of the capstone graduates speaks for itself.
- solardev 3y ago
  Is this a quote from somewhere? (Or maybe just an errant > symbol?) Just wondering if it's your own experience or I missed something
  - jswartz 3y ago
    Sorry errant >. It was based on my own experience. Launch School has a unique model where it's $200/month for the core curriculum which you complete at your own pace, and then can complete an optional capstone curriculum/project which comes with an ISA (18K or 18% of first year salary). Their outcomes are great, the curriculum is top-notch, and the founder always conducted himself with integrity and transparency. I had a great experience.
    - solardev 3y ago
      Cool, thanks for sharing! Another commenter also liked them.
    - beej71 3y ago
      Thanks for sharing an ISA success story. Lots of us who used to teach at Lambda back in the day only did it because we wanted the ISA to succeed widely as a tuition payment mechanism. That dream hasn't been realized, and certainly wasn't by Lambda, but I still hold out hope.
majormajor 3y ago
The math ends up wildly unfavorable unless you are EXTREMELY confident in your teaching/transformation abilities. If you look good on paper before the school then you don't need it and won't be motivated to share your income. So the applicant pool reduces itself to those who on-paper don't have great chances. So you need to cause a really big delta in the ability of those people to make good money in the industry for you to be able to get your cut. And you're gonna pull that off in 6 to 9 months? I'm a big believer in a lot more people having potential to learn than currently have easy opportunities, but that's a hell of a timeline.
- solardev 3y ago
  Well, presumably there's some people who wouldn't be able to afford the upfront tuition? But you're right, $30k (in the worst case) is a lot of money to pay for less than a year of bootcamp.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    $30k is also enough to pay for a shitload of American state schools BS in Computer Science program. WTF That's about what I and my friends paid! That includes room and board in an expensive dorm (it was part of the honors program I was in) and a meal plan with the school.
    - downrightmike 3y ago
      Or a masters in CS 1 year program from the Arizona State
- jimberlage 3y ago
  I remember the marketing for App Academy was that we all would be self-taught, but then the actual makeup of the cohort were people who had prior programming experience (CS all through high school and as a hobby, but studied linguistics in college and regretted it; a designer who had done some JS and couldn’t pass leetcode interviews despite having current frontend skills, etc.) I think the problem they’ve run into is that there are only so many of those types to go around, and you have to stay small or really tackle the problem of transforming someone in 12 weeks eventually. That’s a different and much harder ask.
mushufasa 3y ago
> Are there any legit income-sharing schools of this type, tech or otherwise? Done fairly, it sounds like an interesting alternative to upfront tuition. investing in startups is kindof like betting on the future potential of founders, though it's tied to a business idea. Upstart started as a personal loan for students and expanded to other financial services, it went public recently. They innovated by doing the regular thing (student loans) better than the competition, rather than trying to be both the lender and the school https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstart_Holdings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstart_Holdings > but of course it could be twisted to evil ends. My speculation is that this was a 'road to {} paved with good intentions.' Just like most startup products face challenges in the real world, it sounds like the Lambda School tried everything they could to get high job placement rates, but weren't able to deliver at scale. Then, as their early placement % dropped, they just didn't change the numbers in their marketing materials. After a certain point their early hopes and reality diverged enough to constitute fraud in the eyes of the CFPB Anecdotally, we get a lot of applications for any software job posting, and I discard most of the resumes of recent bootcamp graduates. It's nothing against bootcamps, it's just a signal that the person is a junior engineer. And in the cases we have hired people with less work experience for junior roles, we've had a much higher signal-to-noise ratio in our interview process talking to people who completed traditional education (even if it was not directly a CS program) and have enough of those applicants as-is.
adamisom 3y ago
Yes, the one I did. Launch School (their Capstone program) is 1 year 18%ish ISA. Since, when I did it, 100% of my cohort got real-Dev jobs averaging 120k+, the school still got 20k+/student. They're the anti-lambda school in my book. If anything too modest in their marketing. Best decision of my life.
zmgsabst 3y ago
Trade apprenticeships pay you to study, in return for low(er) entry wages via the union hierarchy. This isn’t formalized into a loan, though. Which is better for the student. https://www.lni.wa.gov/licensing-permits/apprenticeship/become-an-apprentice https://www.lni.wa.gov/licensing-permits/apprenticeship/beco...
zharknado 3y ago
This isn’t the same type of school, but Purdue was an early experimenter with ISAs. Sounds like as of 2022 they’d paused new enrollments. [0] As I recall, some critiques were that it was only deemed viable for a small range of STEM majors, and narrows the mission of the institution toward building earning power vs. providing a well-rounded education, being an intellectual/research hub for the community, etc. [0] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/06/23/purdue-pauses-new-income-share-agreement-enrollments https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/06/23/purdue-pauses...
not_wyoming 3y ago
Yes. Most states have a system where students attend school, receive an education, and pay the school back using a portion of their income after graduation. They're often referred to as "public schools", and ISAs are often called "taxes".
- peripitea 3y ago
  Those schools still charge you $50k and take 4 years of your time, so I'm not sure how that comparison makes sense, particularly for working folks looking to uplevel their skills.
  - not_wyoming 3y ago
    Those schools have not always charged $50k - that's a recent political choice. I'd point to student loan policy as the main driver [0]. Many bootcamps require full-time attendance, and many universities have part-time options. Further, community colleges are an option if the only goal is skill acquisition. Those programs take less time and are cheaper. 0 - John Oliver is not the primary driver of my thinking, but he did an interesting and engaging segment if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN2_0WC7UfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN2_0WC7UfU

jimberlage 3y ago

App Academy (in a much hotter 2013 job market) honored its 10% of my first year’s salary ISA when I attended. Anecdotally from my cohort, they worked with people on missed payments without triggering a balloon repayment.

LamaOfRuin 3y ago

The income based repayment plans for federal student loans are not that different (but without most of the sketchy practices). The fact that those are an option for accredited schools means I think it would be hard to make it work in a program like this. Especially if there is any sort of venture interest expecting actual returns. Actually educating people well is not cheap and I have not seen any of these programs that actually do anything innovative either.

solardev 3y ago
> income based repayment plans for federal student loans Ah, I didn't realize that was a thing. That makes sense, thank you!

jswartz 3y ago

> I attended Launch School and found the founder and the program to be of high quality and integrity and the success of the capstone graduates speaks for itself.

solardev 3y ago
Is this a quote from somewhere? (Or maybe just an errant > symbol?) Just wondering if it's your own experience or I missed something
- jswartz 3y ago
  Sorry errant >. It was based on my own experience. Launch School has a unique model where it's $200/month for the core curriculum which you complete at your own pace, and then can complete an optional capstone curriculum/project which comes with an ISA (18K or 18% of first year salary). Their outcomes are great, the curriculum is top-notch, and the founder always conducted himself with integrity and transparency. I had a great experience.
  - solardev 3y ago
    Cool, thanks for sharing! Another commenter also liked them.
  - beej71 3y ago
    Thanks for sharing an ISA success story. Lots of us who used to teach at Lambda back in the day only did it because we wanted the ISA to succeed widely as a tuition payment mechanism. That dream hasn't been realized, and certainly wasn't by Lambda, but I still hold out hope.

majormajor 3y ago

The math ends up wildly unfavorable unless you are EXTREMELY confident in your teaching/transformation abilities. If you look good on paper before the school then you don't need it and won't be motivated to share your income. So the applicant pool reduces itself to those who on-paper don't have great chances. So you need to cause a really big delta in the ability of those people to make good money in the industry for you to be able to get your cut. And you're gonna pull that off in 6 to 9 months? I'm a big believer in a lot more people having potential to learn than currently have easy opportunities, but that's a hell of a timeline.

solardev 3y ago
Well, presumably there's some people who wouldn't be able to afford the upfront tuition? But you're right, $30k (in the worst case) is a lot of money to pay for less than a year of bootcamp.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  $30k is also enough to pay for a shitload of American state schools BS in Computer Science program. WTF That's about what I and my friends paid! That includes room and board in an expensive dorm (it was part of the honors program I was in) and a meal plan with the school.
  - downrightmike 3y ago
    Or a masters in CS 1 year program from the Arizona State
jimberlage 3y ago
I remember the marketing for App Academy was that we all would be self-taught, but then the actual makeup of the cohort were people who had prior programming experience (CS all through high school and as a hobby, but studied linguistics in college and regretted it; a designer who had done some JS and couldn’t pass leetcode interviews despite having current frontend skills, etc.) I think the problem they’ve run into is that there are only so many of those types to go around, and you have to stay small or really tackle the problem of transforming someone in 12 weeks eventually. That’s a different and much harder ask.

mushufasa 3y ago

> Are there any legit income-sharing schools of this type, tech or otherwise? Done fairly, it sounds like an interesting alternative to upfront tuition. investing in startups is kindof like betting on the future potential of founders, though it's tied to a business idea. Upstart started as a personal loan for students and expanded to other financial services, it went public recently. They innovated by doing the regular thing (student loans) better than the competition, rather than trying to be both the lender and the school https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstart_Holdings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstart_Holdings > but of course it could be twisted to evil ends. My speculation is that this was a 'road to {} paved with good intentions.' Just like most startup products face challenges in the real world, it sounds like the Lambda School tried everything they could to get high job placement rates, but weren't able to deliver at scale. Then, as their early placement % dropped, they just didn't change the numbers in their marketing materials. After a certain point their early hopes and reality diverged enough to constitute fraud in the eyes of the CFPB Anecdotally, we get a lot of applications for any software job posting, and I discard most of the resumes of recent bootcamp graduates. It's nothing against bootcamps, it's just a signal that the person is a junior engineer. And in the cases we have hired people with less work experience for junior roles, we've had a much higher signal-to-noise ratio in our interview process talking to people who completed traditional education (even if it was not directly a CS program) and have enough of those applicants as-is.

adamisom 3y ago

Yes, the one I did. Launch School (their Capstone program) is 1 year 18%ish ISA. Since, when I did it, 100% of my cohort got real-Dev jobs averaging 120k+, the school still got 20k+/student. They're the anti-lambda school in my book. If anything too modest in their marketing. Best decision of my life.

zmgsabst 3y ago

Trade apprenticeships pay you to study, in return for low(er) entry wages via the union hierarchy. This isn’t formalized into a loan, though. Which is better for the student. https://www.lni.wa.gov/licensing-permits/apprenticeship/become-an-apprentice https://www.lni.wa.gov/licensing-permits/apprenticeship/beco...

zharknado 3y ago

This isn’t the same type of school, but Purdue was an early experimenter with ISAs. Sounds like as of 2022 they’d paused new enrollments. [0] As I recall, some critiques were that it was only deemed viable for a small range of STEM majors, and narrows the mission of the institution toward building earning power vs. providing a well-rounded education, being an intellectual/research hub for the community, etc. [0] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/06/23/purdue-pauses-new-income-share-agreement-enrollments https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/06/23/purdue-pauses...

not_wyoming 3y ago

Yes. Most states have a system where students attend school, receive an education, and pay the school back using a portion of their income after graduation. They're often referred to as "public schools", and ISAs are often called "taxes".

peripitea 3y ago
Those schools still charge you $50k and take 4 years of your time, so I'm not sure how that comparison makes sense, particularly for working folks looking to uplevel their skills.
- not_wyoming 3y ago
  Those schools have not always charged $50k - that's a recent political choice. I'd point to student loan policy as the main driver [0]. Many bootcamps require full-time attendance, and many universities have part-time options. Further, community colleges are an option if the only goal is skill acquisition. Those programs take less time and are cheaper. 0 - John Oliver is not the primary driver of my thinking, but he did an interesting and engaging segment if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN2_0WC7UfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN2_0WC7UfU