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Comment by micahlucretius | Hacker News Reader

Burst of bootcamp bubble? Dev Bootcamp seems to have been the first ever coding bootcamp. Think Hack Reactor (another popular bootcamp) was founded by Dev Bootcamp grads. Or maybe the herd would just distribute to other bootcamps? Even if the failure of Dev Bootcamp doesn't directly hurt the business of other bootcamps, it has a psychological effect on the bootcamp industry: suddenly the bootcamp experience doesn't seem so attractive anymore. If the school failed to survive, does it affect the survival of its graduates? Is this going to have a psychological effect on how industry views bootcamp grads, and consequently affect the job prospects of bootcamp grads?

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The bubble is credentialed post-secondary schools and the 1.3 trillion dollar student debt crisis.

Just like the credentialed schools, there's a wide variety in quality and outcomes, but I think it's pretty clear they're doing better on ROI (and at least people aren't going into decades of debt for them en masse).

> "If the school failed to survive, does it affect the survival of its graduates? Is this going to have a psychological effect on how industry views bootcamp grads, and consequently affect the job prospects of bootcamp grads?"

If someone learns nothing after finishing their courses and has nothing positive on their resume for several years, they'd probably be in a tough spot. That's not really very different from the case for other types of schooling, though. If someone is learning and growing though, why would it? Only an extremely strange employer would ignore a candidate's performance in their last job and reject them based on schooling they did before it.

Federal loans (90% of all loans) come with income based repayment plans that charge 10% of your disposable income and are cancelled after 20 years if you don't pay it off.

The income based repayment plans are also retroactively available to all Federal borrowers.

It's not actually as big of a problem as it sounds.

The loan forgiveness entices people who wouldn't otherwise buy the education product and further inflates the sticker price of education.

Sure, but it essentially shifts the debt burden from the individual to the government.

$1.3 trillion in extra government debt isn't a large enough to really cause problems.

I highly doubt that. Almost no one looks 20 years into the future like that.

This intensifies the problem.

Just imagine the US real estate bubble a decade ago if housing loans worked in such a fashion! The perverse incentives alone are enough to cause severe harm.

10% of your income for 20 YEARS.

Man, it is funny that people get mad at Bootcamps like app academy for charging 20% of your income for a single year....

It's 10% of your disposable income. You're only going to be paying for 20 years if you make next to no money.

If you don't get a decent job, you'll basically be paying almost nothing for 20 years. If you get a great job, you'll pay it off way before then.

App Academy nearly tripled my salary in all of 6 months! The motivated people I met and what I learned about the industry, not including the technical skills I obtained, have easily been worth double what they ask for.

It ended up costing 1/4 of my 4 yr degree. I admit, that it's not a magic pill like their marketing will have you believe. That's my one gripe, with how they portray themselves. You have to be motivated and driven to succeed and realistically, not everyone can handle the complexity and speed at which they teach.

They really give you the bare minimum but it's an amazing little boost. It's up to you build yourself up from there.

I would say it's a general education bubble in the US that is still build on the claim that the system can work for everyone - as long as you just try hard enough.

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