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This a sad amount of dog piling for HN. I know dozens of students who attended and turned their lives around because of the program. I see Lambda Alumni on ev

This a sad amount of dog piling for HN. I know dozens of students who attended and turned their lives around because of the program. I see Lambda Alumni on every page of LinkedIn job boards. I'm sure some people had a bad time, but all of the ISA issues GP stated are clearly stated in the contract, and these calls for "jail time" are absurd. People clearly know almost nothing about the program, or its success rate. Don't forget that Student Loans still make this look like charity by comparison in virtually every way.

adeon 2y ago
If 90% of students have a good experience but the 10% of students have a similar experiences to the poster there, then I still think Lambda is another ethical disaster of a start-up. "It's better than a typical USA student loan" is a very low bar.
- nolongerthere 2y ago
  > "It's better than a typical USA student loan" is a very low bar. But that the literal alternative, so feels pretty fair to compare.
  - sn9 2y ago
    Not with learning programming. You can simply self-teach. A bootcamp isn't a CS degree.
    - dukeyukey 2y ago
      Between smarts, motivation, and time most people cannot "simply self-teach". There's a reason education is such a massive industry, and entire professions exist around it.
      - sn9 2y ago
        I'm refuting the notion that your only choices are college degrees or bootcamps.
        dukeyukey 2y ago
        There are absolutely other choices. But those choices won't work for the vast majority of people.
        sn9 2y ago
        There are also other careers with which you can make a good living. Not everything can be for everybody.
- LMYahooTFY 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > You can't expect 100% of students to have a good time, and it's not obvious what an "ethical" success bar should be No, but you can expect none of them to have been lied to. > If Allred is an unscrupulous scammer, he forgot to do the greedy part. The guy is worth less than a lot (maybe most) FAANG SWEs The defense is he's a fraudster, but incompetent?
    - LMYahooTFY 2y ago
      > No, but you can expect none of them to have been lied to. The CFPB report really doesn't make this obvious. All I've seen in this thread and in the CFPB statement are claims with nothing to back them up. The worst I've seen is "100% cohort", which doesn't seem to condemn the whole program. > The defense is he's a fraudster, but incompetent? The defense is I'm having a difficult time finding actual evidence of fraud.
  - alex_lav 2y ago
    > You can't expect 100% of students to have a good time, No one in this thread has suggested this.
    - LMYahooTFY 2y ago
      The guy I responded to said 10% having a bad time was an ethical disaster, so what's the bar? 1%? 9%?
      - alex_lav 2y ago
        Nope, that's not what they said. If 90% of students aren't _scammed_, but 10% are _scammed_, there is an ethical disaster. But at this point it's clear you either have some actual financial incentive/relationship with Lambda School, or you just don't want to be wrong. Either way, I don't think engaging any further will be fruitful.
- dudeinjapan 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - willcipriano 2y ago
    No, beacuse if my alma mater loses it's endowment where will the fightin' sharks or whatever play?
  - manfre 2y ago
    We should be going after all fraudsters. Happiness with a degree is unrelated to fraudulent advertising and sketchy/deceptive contacts. Most universities don't lie so blatantly about services provided to students or graduate job placement percentages.
    - dudeinjapan 2y ago
      The universities don't have to lie or make any promises, because they already have a monopoly on prestige.
  - swozey 2y ago
    > 18th Century Polynesian Gender Studies You really had to use something as cringey as this ridiculous trope? Just go with underwater basket weaving or something less blatantly offensive to a portion of people while riding your high horse.
    - celdon25 2y ago
      Shutting down discussion of a topic that otherwise has merits because you got offended by the idea is how we got here. If you don’t like it you’re not forced to offer a valid rebuttal. You have the option to disagree or not. But taking the easy way out by shutting down the conversation just makes the situation worse for everybody. Nobody was on a high horse until you went there.
    - dudeinjapan 2y ago
      This is what my friend actually studied at Brown, so why is this offensive? It is a real field of study: https://pacific.socsci.uva.nl/besnier/pub/Polynesian_Gender_Liminality.pdf https://pacific.socsci.uva.nl/besnier/pub/Polynesian_Gender_...
outop 2y ago
I'm not sure all the ISA issues are clearly stated in the contract, or whether they were clearly stated in all the contacts, before they started to get into trouble. But they clearly lied about much of this stuff in the headline publicity. Lying prominently and 'clarifying' the lies in the small print is obviously still fraud. Doing fraud and saying 'but the majority of the people we defrauded still had an overall positive experience' is not a defense. Jail time for consumer credit fraud is a perfectly normal outcome. Don't lend consumers money if you don't want to be in a regulatory environment where fraud is taken very seriously.
- LMYahooTFY 2y ago
  Can you point out the lies? I'm genuinely trying to find them, and the CFPB article does not provide any evidence other than a few marketing quotes. I'm very sure all the ISA issues are clearly stated in the contract. Everything is very clear about the fact that you will pay a minimum of $17-18k, and a max of $30k as a percentage of your monthly income. It was very clear that missing a payment would incur the entire loan being owed immediately (presumably it would go to collections). The "hidden $4000 finance charge" I don't really understand, given that it is apparently built into the loan. It's not like you get charged an extra $4000 on top of the $30k (assuming you pay that). I'd still choose this route over 4 years plus college tuition for a CS degree.
  - LMYahooTFY 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - outop 2y ago
    It seems like you are implying that lies in "marketing quotes" are not real lies? I don't think that this is the case. In the rest of your comment you repeat the claim that I was responding to, that all the correct information was in the contract. You seem to have ignored the two key caveats I made: that their contracts might be compliant now, but they probably weren't before they were first investigated. And secondly that they have demonstrably lied extensively outside of the contracts themselves. Lying to convince someone to sign a contract which of itself is truthful, is definitely fraud. Perhaps you don't understand "the hidden finance charge" because you don't understand regulation of consumer credit. When you buy a car, the dealer has to show you numbers breaking down what the cash price of the car is, and how much you will pay in interest. This stops them tricking people by eg raising the sticker price and telling you that the credit is cheaper than it is. This isn't a guideline, it's a law. And the numbers have to be presented in a way which is not obscure or misleading. Scott Tucker got 16 years for this.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

adeon 2y ago

If 90% of students have a good experience but the 10% of students have a similar experiences to the poster there, then I still think Lambda is another ethical disaster of a start-up. "It's better than a typical USA student loan" is a very low bar.

nolongerthere 2y ago
> "It's better than a typical USA student loan" is a very low bar. But that the literal alternative, so feels pretty fair to compare.
- sn9 2y ago
  Not with learning programming. You can simply self-teach. A bootcamp isn't a CS degree.
  - dukeyukey 2y ago
    Between smarts, motivation, and time most people cannot "simply self-teach". There's a reason education is such a massive industry, and entire professions exist around it.
    - sn9 2y ago
      I'm refuting the notion that your only choices are college degrees or bootcamps.
      - dukeyukey 2y ago
        There are absolutely other choices. But those choices won't work for the vast majority of people.
        sn9 2y ago
        There are also other careers with which you can make a good living. Not everything can be for everybody.
LMYahooTFY 2y ago
[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > You can't expect 100% of students to have a good time, and it's not obvious what an "ethical" success bar should be No, but you can expect none of them to have been lied to. > If Allred is an unscrupulous scammer, he forgot to do the greedy part. The guy is worth less than a lot (maybe most) FAANG SWEs The defense is he's a fraudster, but incompetent?
  - LMYahooTFY 2y ago
    > No, but you can expect none of them to have been lied to. The CFPB report really doesn't make this obvious. All I've seen in this thread and in the CFPB statement are claims with nothing to back them up. The worst I've seen is "100% cohort", which doesn't seem to condemn the whole program. > The defense is he's a fraudster, but incompetent? The defense is I'm having a difficult time finding actual evidence of fraud.
- alex_lav 2y ago
  > You can't expect 100% of students to have a good time, No one in this thread has suggested this.
  - LMYahooTFY 2y ago
    The guy I responded to said 10% having a bad time was an ethical disaster, so what's the bar? 1%? 9%?
    - alex_lav 2y ago
      Nope, that's not what they said. If 90% of students aren't _scammed_, but 10% are _scammed_, there is an ethical disaster. But at this point it's clear you either have some actual financial incentive/relationship with Lambda School, or you just don't want to be wrong. Either way, I don't think engaging any further will be fruitful.
dudeinjapan 2y ago
[flagged]
- willcipriano 2y ago
  No, beacuse if my alma mater loses it's endowment where will the fightin' sharks or whatever play?
- manfre 2y ago
  We should be going after all fraudsters. Happiness with a degree is unrelated to fraudulent advertising and sketchy/deceptive contacts. Most universities don't lie so blatantly about services provided to students or graduate job placement percentages.
  - dudeinjapan 2y ago
    The universities don't have to lie or make any promises, because they already have a monopoly on prestige.
- swozey 2y ago
  > 18th Century Polynesian Gender Studies You really had to use something as cringey as this ridiculous trope? Just go with underwater basket weaving or something less blatantly offensive to a portion of people while riding your high horse.
  - celdon25 2y ago
    Shutting down discussion of a topic that otherwise has merits because you got offended by the idea is how we got here. If you don’t like it you’re not forced to offer a valid rebuttal. You have the option to disagree or not. But taking the easy way out by shutting down the conversation just makes the situation worse for everybody. Nobody was on a high horse until you went there.
  - dudeinjapan 2y ago
    This is what my friend actually studied at Brown, so why is this offensive? It is a real field of study: https://pacific.socsci.uva.nl/besnier/pub/Polynesian_Gender_Liminality.pdf https://pacific.socsci.uva.nl/besnier/pub/Polynesian_Gender_...

outop 2y ago

I'm not sure all the ISA issues are clearly stated in the contract, or whether they were clearly stated in all the contacts, before they started to get into trouble. But they clearly lied about much of this stuff in the headline publicity. Lying prominently and 'clarifying' the lies in the small print is obviously still fraud. Doing fraud and saying 'but the majority of the people we defrauded still had an overall positive experience' is not a defense. Jail time for consumer credit fraud is a perfectly normal outcome. Don't lend consumers money if you don't want to be in a regulatory environment where fraud is taken very seriously.

LMYahooTFY 2y ago
Can you point out the lies? I'm genuinely trying to find them, and the CFPB article does not provide any evidence other than a few marketing quotes. I'm very sure all the ISA issues are clearly stated in the contract. Everything is very clear about the fact that you will pay a minimum of $17-18k, and a max of $30k as a percentage of your monthly income. It was very clear that missing a payment would incur the entire loan being owed immediately (presumably it would go to collections). The "hidden $4000 finance charge" I don't really understand, given that it is apparently built into the loan. It's not like you get charged an extra $4000 on top of the $30k (assuming you pay that). I'd still choose this route over 4 years plus college tuition for a CS degree.
- LMYahooTFY 2y ago
  [flagged]
- outop 2y ago
  It seems like you are implying that lies in "marketing quotes" are not real lies? I don't think that this is the case. In the rest of your comment you repeat the claim that I was responding to, that all the correct information was in the contract. You seem to have ignored the two key caveats I made: that their contracts might be compliant now, but they probably weren't before they were first investigated. And secondly that they have demonstrably lied extensively outside of the contracts themselves. Lying to convince someone to sign a contract which of itself is truthful, is definitely fraud. Perhaps you don't understand "the hidden finance charge" because you don't understand regulation of consumer credit. When you buy a car, the dealer has to show you numbers breaking down what the cash price of the car is, and how much you will pay in interest. This stops them tricking people by eg raising the sticker price and telling you that the credit is cheaper than it is. This isn't a guideline, it's a law. And the numbers have to be presented in a way which is not obscure or misleading. Scott Tucker got 16 years for this.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]