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Comment by twblalock | Hacker News Reader

> At Lambda, students pay nothing upfront. But they are required to pay 17 percent of their salary to Lambda for two years if they get a job that pays more than $50,000.

This appears to create a cliff:

If you make $50000 a year, you keep $50000 a year.

If you make $51000 a year, you pay 17% ($8670) and you keep $42330. That extra dollar cost you a ton of money.

It really ought to be a marginal rate like tax brackets.

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There is a cliff, as a person with an ISA with a similar program (Holberton School), there's really no disincentive to seek a high paying job. The ISA doesn't expire, if I'm making below the threshold then it just gets deferred until I make above the threshold.

At Lambda School, the ISA does expire after 5 years of not meeting the income threshold.

It turns out that people usually work more than a few years, and their salaries rise over time. It would be counterproductive not to negotiate the highest salary you could (because you'll probably go upwards from there).

> It turns out that people usually work more than a few years, and their salaries rise over time.

It also turns out that people know this and don't appreciate your trite condescension.

Even more amazingly, it turns out that when people get a raise they expect to actually take home more money, which is only possible when the rate of taxation or whatever this thing is acts on marginal income rather than total income.

In an ideal world that would be possible/simple. The real solution is to get someone a job that pays more than $50k/yr.

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