[beej71]

I agree with you on the dangers of targeting minorities. My thinking is still, though, that there is a category of people well-served by ISAs, and those people are underrepresented in schools with traditional payment models.

I've often thought that anyone can be a dev--if they want it. Meaning, it has to be someone who likes the material enough to put in the effort. It doesn't matter if you're smart enough; it only matters if you're going to put in the time. There's a reason I'm not a CPA. I'm absolutely smart enough, but eff that!

And lots of times schools do advertise "we guarantee you a position in a high paying job if you just put your ass in that seat for 6 months". Who wouldn't want that? But they leave off the "you gotta want it" part. And then people get trapped.

Related to "easy to leave", we fought to filter the front-end heavily for people who "wanted it". And we fought to allow students to attend for as long as possible with no obligation. The goal was to allow them to discover if they wanted it. However, this was not realized while I was there. So much more I could say here about how that didn't happen, but I'd wager you have a pretty good guess.

Hand-in-hand with wanting it (IMHO) is having a comprehensive, heavy-hitting curriculum. The guy who hired me left Lambda ages ago, but he and I came up with a list of things people should learn to be decent devs... and that was one helluva list. Needless to say, not all of it got covered, and as time went on, less and less of it did.

I love that California community colleges are now free. Easy to leave!

I really appreciate the conversation, btw. I also like geeking out about this topic, and it sounds like I could learn a lot from the ground you've already covered. I'll check out the reading after I finish prepping for class next week. (0-1 Knapsack and dynamic programming. Phew.)

[cglee]

We have a saying at Launch School: habits over enthusiasm. I've noticed that wanting it isn't enough. Desire is fine but what the real key is a commitment to studying. I think we're saying the same thing with different phrases.

Agree that ISAs can be useful. But it's a tool that can be used to harm or help. Elevating it beyond a financial tool to some sort of educational breakthrough was a disservice, imo.

We agree on the value of community colleges. I wish they were better funded and more people worked to drive CC graduates to six-figure jobs.