[pradn]

Your bizarre cheeriness in the face of "Agreeing to End Deceptive Educational Financing Practices" is offputting, especially when coupled with the way college financing has led to generational deadweight, anxiety, and hopelessness.

[davidw]

What's he supposed to do? Rant about the government? Making the best of it and moving on is probably the best move, since it doesn't sound like a big hit to their business.

Also, it looks like you get out of Lambda School debts via bankruptcy, which you don't with regular college, so that's... an improvement?

[foerbert]

This response just appears disconnected from reality. It's like watching somebody talk about how getting punched in the face was a wonderful and purely positive experience. It's just baffling.

There are options other than being weirdly positive and ranting. They could not say anything at all. They could give one of several varieties of mea culpa. They could simply state their intentions going forward.

[sandofsky]

> What's he supposed to do?

Apologize.

> Also, it looks like you get out of Lambda School debts via bankruptcy, which you don't with regular college, so that's... an improvement?

"You can't discharge student debt," is actually a myth. I have two relatives that discharged their loans due to financial hardship. It isn't trivial, but there's a process.

The issue with ISAs, in their current form, is the lack of legal framework. Short of bankruptcy, the best you can do is lawyer up. Lambda School targets people who can't afford lawyers.

[LMYahooTFY]

I imagine you might ignore me here since you opted out of our other thread, but I'd like to ask:

What specific issues do you have with the ISA?

[pseudalopex]

Saying nothing was an option.

[anchpop]

Why would you prefer he say nothing? As long as he’s not misleading people I don’t see what the harm of commenting is.

[pseudalopex]

Framing a request to stop making false claims about dischargeability as a request to clarify them is misleading. Making it seem like those were the only false claims the settlement covered is misleading too.

[minimaxir]

Spinning a negative as a positive is misleading at best.

[pepy]

you say misleading? how surprising

[threatofrain]

> Also, it looks like you get out of Lambda School debts via bankruptcy, which you don't with regular college, so that's... an improvement?

That was always the case, Lambda School just communicated otherwise to students.

[TheRealPomax]

In this particular case? It's an HN item, it's going to drop off the front page in <12 hours, so... not commenting would have been far more sensible than to try to PR-convince a cynical tech crowd.

[threatofrain]

> Also, it looks like you get out of Lambda School debts via bankruptcy, which you don't with regular college, so that's... an improvement?

But if you lie about it, then...

[rajacombinator]

Not to mention that Lambda School is an attempt to actually align the incentives of school and students, which is the main problem with educational financing today. Wrong target to pile on.

[sugarwater]

As a student that went through the program, I question if their incentives were aligned.

During the middle of my enrollment at the program (Sept 2020), the school suddenly dropped all notion of grading, code review, and attendance, let alone the length of the program. It remained this way for 3 months, 50% of the length of the program.

This is a broad description of the changes, but I want to emphasize that the changes were terrible, _many_ students complained, and the school essentially whistled with fingers in their ears.

[hluska]

Are you doing okay now?? That sounds awful...:(

[sugarwater]

I graduated at the end of February and am still job searching.

In the meantime I have a part time job and working through the MIT Computer Science OCW

[hluska]

If I was in a position to offer you something I would but I’m not. With some luck, someone else will see this and help you out.

That said, I’ve read through your profile and you’re a heck of a good writer. You likely don’t need any help and you’re going to do very well for yourself!! :)

[michaelbuckbee]

I'd agree with you except that in this case it seems like the "deception" was actually working against Lambda school.

Previously -> if you go bankrupt you still owe us.

Now -> if you go bankrupt you don't owe us.

On the face of it this seems like it would make Lambda school _more_ attractive than less.

Note, the clause in question is "qualified educational loan…subject to the limitations on dischargeability contained in…the United States Bankruptcy Code."

[marcinzm]

It's not about being attractive, it's about ex-students not declaring bankruptcy because they think it won't remove their lambda school loans. Thus lambda school keeps getting money from them instead of getting nothing after they decide to declare bankruptcy. That clause was, in my eyes, clearly designed to discourage students from exercising their ability to clear debts via bankruptcy.

[nrmitchi]

I've seen this point made elsewhere too, but I'm not sure I understand it.

The ISAs are, as far as I know, capped at 30k, and only apply if you're making 50k/yr. I can't imagine a situation where someone's decision of whether or not to declare bankrupcy comes down to the 30k-max ISA; either it's the majority of your debt, and you're making >50k/yr, or it's a small amount relative to your other debt, in which case you should proceed anyways.

[pseudalopex]

Or you're making less but think you could make more eventually.

[narwally]

Yep, it's about "Human Capital: The Last Unoptimized Asset Class" <- the title of an actual internal memo they wrote.

[ghufran_syed]

what’s wrong with that? is it better that people can’t develop their human capital, or is it better if people have a variety of ways to finance education to develop their human capital? The status quo is government student loans to finance education, which are generally NOT dischargeable in bankruptcy, AND must still be paid even if if you didn’t graduate, or get a good job afterwards? Isn’t the income-share agreement at least “less bad”? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on how better to address the problem? If the government was involved, I personally think the best way would be a graduate tax of x%

[judge2020]

Maybe more attractive, but only in the 'defraud them by going bankrupt after getting the certification' sense, where they educate the students without getting paid in some cases.

One of the biggest reasons student loans can't be forgiven in bankruptcy is because, after school, chances are the graduate has zero assets and can go bankrupt with the only downside being destroying their credit for 7 years. Whether or not you think this is justified or fair is up to you, but the situation before this ruling simply [de-]elevated Lambda School to the same playing field as other educational institutions - the only difference being that those institutions don't offer student loans themselves.

[anchpop]

I wonder if the accusation is that they were trying to mislead people into not understanding that bankruptcy is an option, in the hope that they’ll be less likely to default? Still doesn’t really seem that serious to me. Nobody who was under the impression that the loans could not be discharged by bankruptcy will be disappointed to find out that they can.

[nicklecompte]

> they were trying to mislead people into not understanding that bankruptcy is an option

It’s exactly this. Lambda School customers tend to be young and financially ignorant, with very few resources. If a graduate is in a position where, say, they can’t find a software job, they could be functionally bankrupt, and their dwindling income/savings will still be going towards outstanding Lambda School payments.

From this perspective, it’s extremely shitty for LS to deceive students that they would have to make the payments, with no legal options, even if they were stressed about rent and groceries.

[spullara]

You don't have to pay if you don't have a job so I don't think this comment is correct.

[tims33]

I'm sure the previous terms made the loans much more attractive to lenders which is helpful to Lambda. It would be most useful to understand who created the terms in the first place.

[mbesto]

> On the face of it this seems like it would make Lambda school _more_ attractive than less.

Technically sure. On the face it tells me something about their branding - that their offering may be more deceptive than I might realize. Especially since its a new economic model for education, the customer probably hasn't thought through everything, so trust is important here.

[LMYahooTFY]

You seem to not be aware of how Lambda School operates at all.

It in no way resembles the college financing model, and in fact the purpose was to succeed in precisely the way it does not.

[wakeywakeywakey]

Reminds me of the 'Human Heater' pitch from the Silicon Valley show [1]

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di3fPj0pUbQ

[judge2020]

> It has not been shown conclusively that microwaves (or other non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation) have significant adverse biological effects at low levels. Some, but not all, studies suggest that long-term exposure may have a carcinogenic effect.

He might not be entirely wrong. They're still not going to sell any to the general public, though, especially if it is carcinogenic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave#Health_effects:~:tex...