[tempsy]

Unclear if these figures account for students that dropped out...I’m guessing no. Per the ISA terms you owe 40% of the ISA after 5 weeks of the 36 week course (<14% complete).

My issue is the incentive that would create to enroll students you in admissions know would likely not complete the program, and then still collect 40% of the value of the ISA.

It becomes a Survivor-esque learning environment where a significant number of students might be dropping out and you’re left with a much smaller number of students who do graduate.

[pixelperfect]

Graduation rate would be a good figure to publish on their site. I searched for it out of curiosity, and according to the CEO they have ~85% graduation rate.

https://twitter.com/Austen/status/1140636581679624192

[tempsy]

This figure is not audited, and Lambda school only recently switched to 9 months from 6 months, so saying that it’s 85% for a “9 month program” is misleading if most of their past cohorts were on a schedule much shorter than that.

[pixelperfect]

That said, .15 + (.85 * .15) = 0.2775, the proportion of the student body who either didn't graduate or didn't find a job within 180 days of graduating. So there is a significant fraction who might regret attending the program. But it still compares well with universities.

[throwawayjava]

Which isn't the right point of comparison. How does it compare with University CS departments?

[tempsy]

Usually a big component to these programs are weekly exams to make sure you’re on track. I’ve looked into some of the local ones and usually if you fail a few you will be dismissed from the program.

85% means little if Lambda has a low bar to dismissing students that are struggling and not keeping up with the material.

[davidiach]

At least they don't have to pay for it if they can't find a job.

[hisnameisjimmy]

The ISA only activates if you get a job in that field of study.

[lwb]

> My issue is the incentive that would create to enroll students you in admissions know would likely not complete the program, and then still collect 40% of the value of the ISA.

They only collect money if the student is employed in a tech field, which means they're more incentivized to get you into one of those.

[tempsy]

If someone dropped out after completing 14% of a program and later did another program or self-study to land a job without Lambda’s help why should Lambda get 40% of the ISA value?

If this scenario never happens to dropouts (you’re assuming they have no other path or desire to work in tech after dropping out) then Lambda would either change the percent owed to something proportional to time spent or increase the number of weeks you spend at Lambda before owing anything.

[louisswiss]

A simple answer could be opportunity costs. Lambda is oversubscribed and places are limited, so by accepting a place and then dropping out, Lambda is stuck with nearly all of the same costs as if you had completed the course, which they could easily have filled with someone else.

[tempsy]

I don’t think they really have limited capacity. There’s minimal additional cost to adding a student participating in a massive Zoom call.

[anonymous1482]

As someone currently seven weeks in to one of their classes, this isn't entirely accurate - the full class I'm in is about 50 students plus a dozen assorted staff. At that size, there's room for a fair amount of student-lecturer participation (comparable to 300+ level college classes), and I am at least familiar with most of my classmates. We also break off into 7- or 8-person groups in the afternoons, which are led by paid team leads (prior students), which would also somewhat limit capacity.

Thus far, I've seen that most of the people who dropped out did so in the first couple weeks - IIRC, there have been two people who left since week four, but I don't know if they dropped out or got "flexed" (pushed back to the class that started a month after mine).

That being said, I do agree that 40% after the first month is steep, though the limiting of the applicability of the ISA to tech jobs helps. I'll be interested to see how it plays out, and if more people drop out over time. I certainly hope it works out well for me, but I'll have to see how the rest of the program plays out.