Hacker News Reader

Comment by curiouscat321 | Hacker News Reader

I've never been involved with Udacity or any for-profit schools.

But, its remarkable how much that ad feels like a University of Phoenix ad. Most for-profit school ads seem to push flexibility and future job earnings. University of Phoenix (and Udacity) go for a much subtler route for the TV ads I've seen. They glamorize the ending jobs and the college-student/professional lifestyle.

In my mind, the worst for-profit schools suffer from two distinct issues: bad instruction and bad credentialing. Udacity supposedly has fixed the instruction problem with strong industry ties. But, they haven't fixed the credentialing problem. A Udacity nanodegree is still worth very little, if anything, compared to any other form of education.

View on HN

For the Nanodegree courses, Udacity guarantees a job or your money back. Would your perception of Uni of Phoenix change if they did the same?

What kind of job are they guaranteeing? My current position is like 25% data science and 75% business analyst (with a business analyst level salary). If they would guarantee me a job that was 100% data scientist with a $100k salary I would sign up in a heart beat, but I figure they will say I already have a job doing that function and not give me my money back.

https://www.udacity.com/nanodegree/plus

https://udacity.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/207695886-What...

https://www.udacity.com/legal/nanodegreeplus

Udacity guarantees you a job offer as an employee or a contractor within 6 months from receiving your Nanodegree Plus credential (the Job Placement Period). Further, in your new job Udacity guarantees that your gross income from such job will be in excess of your cost of tuition (pre-tax) within a 3 month period following job placement.

3 months at (US federal) minimum wage is roughly $3500, well over a year's tuition.

> Udacity guarantees you a job offer as an employee or a contractor within 6 months from receiving your Nanodegree Plus credential (the Job Placement Period). Further, in your new job Udacity guarantees that your gross income from such job will be in excess of your cost of tuition (pre-tax) within a 3 month period following job placement.

> 3 months at (US federal) minimum wage is roughly $3500, well over a year's tuition.

The problem is that the interesting metric is income - (minus) necessary expenses (e.g. living costs). The latter are very high for example in San Francisco, where there are more jobs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com