[ji_zai]

I believe the underlying cause is that the pay-to-learn model itself is not feasible because the value of a good teacher's time cannot be compensated without charging students and ridiculously high fee, and a student can't justify a high fee when the outcomes aren't guaranteed.

Colleges have worked in the past because the outcomes were more or less guaranteed (i.e. if you got good grades and graduated, you would very likely land a job), but even that is no longer valid (outside of regulated domains like medicine, law, etc.).

I predict we will see many, many more pay-to-learn companies, institutions fall in the coming years. ("fall" could also mean become irrelevant, and catering only to those that don't understand how the world has changed and still incorrectly think that such programs will prepare them well).

BloomTech, in order to survive, had no choice but to try and play the games they did, and mislead. It's a byproduct of not having a business that is viable.

[paulddraper]

That, plus there is an extremely strong negative select for coding bootcamps.

Your local community college could have the best program ever, but they won't beat Ivy League grads, purely because of the inputs.

[ji_zai]

Absolutely. Higher quality inputs actually reduces the forcing function for the education to be high quality - since you'll get good outcomes anyway.

[fuzzfactor]

>reduces the forcing function for the education to be high quality

Not just the education, but the selection process too.

If the higher-quality inputs are abundant, then the overly-exclusive selection process is somewhat deleveraging of overall potential.

If the higher-quality inputs are scarce, they are outnumbered by others having average-to-below-average potential, who often seek the exclusive membership more so than any actual high-quality performance.

Once again a large percentage of the highest-quality inputs can be systematically excluded in a disadvantageous way.

With good fortune at least a good number of high-quality inputs do gain entrance and it can set a good example, sometimes realistic, sometimes not.

Either way the higher-quality inputs are best identified beforehand, not the result of an overly exclusive selection process.

But it's this type selection process that contributes so much to some institutions' perceptions of quality, when they could be doing so much more.

From the least-prestigious programs all the way up to the most-prestigious, it seems like there is always going to be some temptation to blur the distinction among peers and tiers in a way that's confusing to students, and it's just a matter of integrity whether that is taken a bit too far.