
Launch HN: Lambda School (YC S17) – CS education that's free until you get a job - austenallred
Hey HN,<p>We&#x27;re Lambda School (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lambdaschool.com&#x2F;computer-science" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lambdaschool.com&#x2F;computer-science</a>). We train people to become software engineers, and we charge nothing until a student gets a software job that pays more than $50k&#x2F;yr. At that point we take 17% of income for two years (capped at a maximum of $30k total).<p>There are so many people held back from a high quality education simply because they can&#x27;t afford the cost and&#x2F;or risk. Even if you can get student loans, four years and a potential six figures of student loans is a daunting proposition, especially if you come from a lower-income background. New alternatives, such as code bootcamps, either require expensive loans or tens of thousands of dollars in cash up front, which most people don&#x27;t have, and they vary widely in quality. This leaves a lot of very smart people working for not much money.<p>We&#x27;re different. We&#x27;re an educational institution that owns the risk: if you don&#x27;t get a good job, we don&#x27;t get paid. We do everything in small, interactive, online classes with world-class instructors (currently from Stanford, Berkeley, Hack Reactor, etc.). Our curriculum goes a lot deeper than code bootcamps as well; we use C++ and spend a lot of time with lower-level algorithms, data structures, architecture, scaling, etc.<p>The full curriculum is here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;LambdaSchool&#x2F;LambdaCSA-Syllabus" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;LambdaSchool&#x2F;LambdaCSA-Syllabus</a>. 
Happy to answer any questions and looking forward to hearing feedback!
======
artur_makly
Bravo! This is overdue.

Back in the early 80's my dad ( a chess teacher from Odessa ) immigrated to
NYC ( with just $150 ). My mom worked 3 jobs to put him through Yeshiva Uni
where he learned Cobol, JCL, and Fortran.

He ended up getting hired right away by Lehman Bros, and realized he was
sitting on a gold-mine. Tons of well-educated immigrants were coming onto the
golden-paved shores, with 0 knowledge of computer programming.

So we upgraded our family 1.5 bdrm apt in Jackson Heights, Queens, to a modest
3 bedroom tower apt in Forest Hills, where he proceeded to lecture evening and
weekend classes by the droves.. (all on 1 white board!) * my job ( i was 13 at
the time ) was to serve everyone instant coffee and bagels.

One day I was curious and asked him “Dad, these folks can barely speak
english.. how are they going to even pass their interviews?” — he looked up
from his hand-drawn spreadsheet he kept a strict record of students..”Oh that
part is easy… I already know all their future managers” — It was the perfect
funnel.

best of luck fellas!

~~~
wyclif
Fascinating story; why don't you write this up long-form and submit it here to
HN?

~~~
artur_makly
yeah there is much to say! (good and bad)

Alas running a digital studio, a startup, and being a father to a wild 5yr old
boy has produced few disposable hours(sigh)

..however weekly Medium posts is something i've been meaning to
do...especially as im living abroad.

thanks for the encouragement.

------
iomotoko
In the registration process:

 _Are you legally authorized to work in the United States? Just a note: We are
currently unable to offer income-based repayment outside of the United States.
You can still attend Lambda School, but you would have to pay at least $10,000
up-front_

$10,000 - that's about as expensive as a high quality bachelor's degree (in
Germany) at private university via distance learning, where someone can pay
flexibly btw. Additionally: We are talking about 6 semesters worth of material
and study, study time can be extended for free.

What you are offering is a 6-month crash course where someone will have _NO_
degree whatsoever afterwards. I also doubt how much computer science you can
teach in that time. Normal CS curriculum spends about one module (one
semester's worth) on just the introduction to programming, has probably 2
modules (that you would do in 2 semesters) of computer science basics like
computer architecture et cetera... there are so many good resources already
available, including lectures of incredibly professors from some of the
greatest universities.

Also: You have to create the learning resources once and can take on as many
students as you want w/out any additional cost, great for you, seems like
selling snake oil to me. I am unsure besides the resources and apparently
online group working ("group work happens live and interactive") what it is
you provide for possibly 30k$ in cash? 1 success finances the cost you have w/
an incredible amount of failures, and it's not clear to me if that one guy
finding a job will have done so bc of your awesome curriculum and support?

It seems to me like anyone who can possibly finance proper education some
other way should (and I want to repeat: it's a 6-months crash course, not a
degree)

~~~
tedmiston
Germany is an outlier in higher education. In the US, $10k is lucky to get you
1 year of in-state tuition and books (excluding room and board) at an average
public state school with a CS program. If you go to college in a state
different than what you live in, the rates are even higher.

~~~
sleavey
In Scotland, there are no tuition fees charged to anyone from the EU (except
England and Wales - funny story - see bottom). I have a student loan from my
studies, but it was only due to the need for living expenses, and the
government insisted (legally) that my parents contributed to them based on
their income. The loan's interest rate is capped at inflation (0% real term
interest), so it is quite literally the best loan you'll ever get. You start
to pay it off after you reach a certain income level (£15k/year, I think),
paying something like 4% of your income towards the loan, and if after a fixed
amount of time you have not paid it off (because you never earned enough) then
the loan is written off.

People here are frequently warned of the silliness of paying off their student
loans early. If you get any kind of loan with interest above inflation (which
is basically all of them), it would make more sense to pay that off before the
student loan.

 _EU law says universities must charge foreign EU nationals the same rate as
they charge locals. There is a loophole in that this does not apply to the
"home nations" within the UK, so Scottish universities (and English and Welsh
return) can charge the other home nations' students whatever they like._

~~~
wbillingsley
Out of interest, what was the Scottish universities' plan if the independence
referendum had succeeded (in which case EU law would have prevented them from
charging or discriminating against English students, and suddenly England's
10-times-bigger population would have had a £9,000 per year incentive to go to
Scotland for uni...)

~~~
sleavey
The vast majority of the big money comes from non-EU citizens studying in
Scotland, who get charged double, triple or even more than English students,
especially for subjects with good job prospects like business, law and
medicine. I imagine they would have increased non-EU places at the expense of
EU places to compensate. There was an idea to allow foreign nationals to stay
much longer after finishing their degree in order to work and gain experience,
which would have made studying in an independent Scotland more attractive.

------
keithnz
I feel it's misleading, it's naming feels like its coat tailing off implying
something like a university comp sci degree ( with a practical bent), and this
seems more of a React web/mobile app design course with a bit of C++ and some
basic algorithms ( presumably so they can pass interviews that seem to be
obsessed with such things )

$30k seems steep, and while 0 $ upfront is appealing, that kind of strategy
can be exploitative( like 0% deposit financing ). It can be super appealing to
someone who doesn't have much money, but they end up paying a lot more than
they really should be.

Not saying this is bad (maybe it's good thing), but when look through it, I'm
getting alarm bells.

~~~
GuiA
17% is huge, particularly when you consider it within the context of after tax
income. $100k salary is $60k or so after taxes in California; take away $17k +
rent and food, and you're getting pretty close to paycheck to paycheck living,
particularly if the person has loans from a failed college attempt, medical
expenses, etc.

They're essentially asking for $30-$60k or so - which is more than in state
tuition for a bachelor's degree in many states. The difference is that a BSc
is still widely recognized and accepted and will still be in 10 years (despite
what many HNers would like to think), unlike this program, which most
certainly won't even exist anymore.

~~~
austenallred
Repayment is capped at $30k max, so the most we could possibly take is
$30,000.

~~~
GuiA
Original posting is ambiguous on whether the $30k cap is yearly, or for the
whole duration. Thanks for the correction.

------
nxc18
This is very interesting and I like the finance model a lot. I'd be curious to
see more details on the syllabus, however.

I also have questions about the quality of instruction. There are some big
name institutions listed, but that doesn't necessarily indicate quality
instruction. The best researchers are often emphatically not the best
instructors, and for this venture instructors are much more important.

I sincerely hope this is successful; perhaps this can prompt traditional
institutions to be more innovative (in delivery, instruction, finance, all of
it).

~~~
austenallred
> The best researchers are often emphatically not the best instructors, and
> for this venture instructors are much more important.

This is very true. Most of our instructors are refugees from an academic
world; they really just want to teach, and research for them was a necessary
evil.

We have a pretty rigorous hiring process (and we're hiring now!
careers@lambdaschool.com)

>I'd be interested to see more on the syllabus

What would you like to see?

~~~
0xffff2
>What would you like to see?

Not OP, but I think your "syllabus" is seriously lacking in detail. For
example, you have a week and a half of "operating systems" That is summarized
as 4 bullet points. I would really expect to see at least a paragraph under
each of the three sections describing exactly what a student should understand
after completing each module. For the operating systems section, I would like
to see something like this for the first half of week 19:

|Operating Systems II

|After completing this section, students should be able to describe the
various levels of memory used by modern computers, including CPU caches, RAM
and swap space. Students should understand how each of these levels of memory
are used during program execution. Additionally, students should understand
how memory is addressed, including physical and virtual addressing, how memory
is managed and allocated by the operating system, and how memory may be shared
by multiple processes on the same system.

~~~
austenallred
Good feedback. We'll add more detail.

~~~
mplewis
This is my gold standard for bootcamp syllabi:
[https://www.turing.io/programs/back-end-
engineering](https://www.turing.io/programs/back-end-engineering)

It tells me:

• What grads know when they get out

• How they apply what they've learned

• How it applies to my workplace if I'm considering hiring them

------
jbob2000
How do you know that your graduates are or aren't making more than 50k? How do
you know that you're getting your 17%?

Aside from that, you're essentially giving your students a loan and then
having them repay it once they start earning money. How is this any different
than a regular student loan (but with way more risk on your end)?

~~~
austenallred
> How do you know that your graduates are or aren't making more than 50k?

Great question. In addition to our income share agreement, each student
submits a form to the IRS that will essentially copy us on their taxes. We
have annual reconciliation based on those numbers to see if they match a
student's self-reported numbers.

> You're essentially giving your students a loan and then having them repay it
> once they start earning money.

Eh, kind of. The biggest difference is if they _don 't_ get a job that pays
$50k+ they _don 't_ pay us. Also, if you ever lose a job, your payments stop
until you're back on your feet.

It's an equity instrument, and we think it's much better and more forgiving
than loans as a result of that.

~~~
mkagenius
If that's a step function, then people would be happy earning $49,999 than
$60k (and may even try to negotiate with the employer to reduce the salary)

~~~
austenallred
I suppose that's a risk we have to take, though being willing to forgo $10k of
income for two years ($20k) in order to avoid paying $20k seems a little
silly; all you'd gain are the taxes, but you'd also have a hard time getting a
raise, etc.

~~~
JavaOffScript
Unless they form a contract with their employers saying they will take 49,999
for 2 years with a guaranteed raise to 60k at the end. Employer saves money,
employee saves money, school gets screwed...

~~~
austenallred
If that's how you want to optimize your life, congratulations. You cheated the
school that gave you a chance out of a few thousand dollars.

Might be smarter to just get paid more :)

~~~
brlewis
The way I read it you collect 17% once they start earning $50k+. Do you really
collect nothing if their first two years are below?

~~~
austenallred
If they make <$50k we wait until they're making more, for up to five years. We
will keep trying to get them a high paying job the entire time.

------
beilabs
I'm going to play devils advocate here. I don't think I'd be in your target
market primarily because I feel for 15k a year I can achieve a decent
education just by online resources alone. It would be just as well recognized;
I'd even think that a local community college could be cheaper. Granted,
upfront cash is a luxury that few without the bank of mom and dad can access.

An Irish degree costs 3000 euros a year to enroll. Even for four years that
would be cheaper than what's on offer here with a world wide recognized
qualification.

On the whole, it seems like a very American solution to an American problem,
education is just far too expensive in the states. * I'm a beneficiary of free
state education from Ireland.

Best of luck in the effort, I do applaud you for it especially in the US where
there are always tech shortages but...I really wish your country was in a
place where your type of business didn't have to exist. A country where only
those who can afford to be educated can receive education. I'm saying this as
someone living in Nepal where those who can't pay can't learn either.

I really wish education was subsidized, worldwide! Alas, never going to
happen.

~~~
austenallred
Indeed, it is difficult to compete with the price of a fully subsidized
education.

That said, we still have students from the EU that attend Lambda School. It's
not _all_ about cost, it's also about use of time. You can get a degree that
is more well recognized in four years, or you can attend Lambda School and
work for three years. Would you rather hire someone with an official degree
from a community college or someone that attended a CS Academy and worked for
three years? You could argue either way, but it's not clear to me that the
degree is the clear winner.

~~~
beilabs
I'm curious how your students in Europe will agree to return the % of salary
back to you. I would imagine there would be more restrictions in that regard
than with the IRS.

In Ireland even a degree in CS from the worst school guarantees a base of
education that has been reviewed and agreed upon. I'm unaware if the same
vigilance has been applied in your own curriculum.

Also, please remember that degrees are necessary should one wish to migrate
internationally in many situations so don't discount them out of hand.

Personally, I'd hire the person with the degree before any bootcamp on its
own. That said, I believe that most degrees are useless without real world
knowledge and application. I've hired 10 staff over the past 12 months from a
variety of backgrounds, some with MSc level, others who have barely scraped
through their B.Sc. Qualifications means competence at school, doesn't always
equal to success in the software engineering field.

~~~
austenallred
We don't know how students in Europe can agree to return a percentage of
salary yet, which is why we don't offer income share agreements in Europe yet.

I don't discount degrees at all, I just don't think they're the ultimate
solution to anything nor do I believe they're the only way to be qualified for
a job.

We have a lot of students with CS degrees that starting out could barely code
their way out of a wet paper bag. I'm entirely unconvinced that a degree
guarantees any real level of ability. That's not to say that _no one_ with a
degree can code, just that _not everyone_ with a degree can code.

------
pw
'austenallred is a cool individual, and this seems like it could be a
particularly good take on the code school model, but I always wonder if
programs like this help on the margin. That is, do they help people succeed
(i.e. get a job in software) who otherwise wouldn't, or do they just
accelerate the success of those who would, one way or another, eventually
succeeded regardless of their participation in the program? I think the latter
might be likely simply just because for good programs (like this one) demand
far outstrips supply, so they can be extremely picky about who they accept and
only accept individuals who are destined to succeed.

Not that accelerating the success of those destined to succeed is in any way a
bad thing (it is, undoubtedly, a good thing, and can certainly make for a good
business), but my interest is much more in helping those succeed who otherwise
wouldn't. That seems like a much harder challenge and one that can have more
interesting ramifications for things like social mobility and income
inequality.

~~~
MarkMc
> demand far outstrips supply, so they can be extremely picky about who they
> accept and only accept individuals who are destined to succeed

The same criticism has been applied to top-tier universities such as Harvard:

[https://www.brookings.edu/articles/who-needs-
harvard/](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/who-needs-harvard/)

------
SimianLogic2
I've thought a bit about how you would structure something like this as a pro-
bono service instead of a paid service. The thing I always struggle with is
how to get people who currently lack the basic computer skills, math, and
logic skills and get them to the point where they could benefit from a
bootcamp. Most people I know who've made it through a bootcamp successfully
already had some sort of exposure to coding before starting.

You'd almost need a skills camp before the bootcamp that would be less choosy
and take the top 20-30% of those students into a further bootcamp... but at
that point the economics start to break down (why it'd likely need to be pro-
bono).

Anyway, that was a big tangent! I think what you're doing is interesting. Do
you have a twitter account set up if we're interested in following along?

------
bipbip
Looks very similar to Holberton School -
[https://www.holbertonschool.com/](https://www.holbertonschool.com/) \-
launched 2 years ago, it's also 17% after students get a job. Their curriculum
covers low-level programming, high-level programming and system engineering.
They have a pretty good track record so far, students finding opportunities at
NASA, LinkedIn, Apple, Dropbox, Docker.

~~~
austenallred
Ya, holberton is solid. It would be difficult or impossible for most of our
students to move to San Francisco unpaid for two years.

~~~
bipbip
They get paid pretty fast though at Holberton, as they start their first
internship after 6 months in.

~~~
austenallred
Ya I've got nothing against Holberton, it's just not a model that works for
the vast majority of our students.

------
dfabulich
IMO, the cost of living is the core problem with CS education programs like
this. It's always been possible to teach yourself to code for free if you have
a computer, Internet, and 40 hours a week to spend on practice. But who can
afford to do that?

What these programs need most of all are cheap dormitories that offer room and
board. (Close proximity to students can also help provide one another with a
support network.)

~~~
joshuarcher
100% agree being around other students would be a huge plus. I went to a
school where I was surrounded by 40 other amateur programmers all driven
towards building awesome products and writing quality code. Being in that
environment is what made me obsessed with software.

There's actually a program called Make School that's pretty similar to this
Lambda school, except they DO have student dorms and even offer a 2k/month
living stipend in SF. Finding Make School on ProductHunt a few years ago was
probably one of the highlights of my young adulthood.

[https://www.makeschool.com/product-
college](https://www.makeschool.com/product-college)
[https://www.producthunt.com/posts/makeschool-gap-
year](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/makeschool-gap-year)

~~~
austenallred
You're still surrounded by other software engineers; you have a set class
you'll get to know very well.

------
wonderous
Have you run across any prior business that trade education for a percentage
of future income?

Ask since I've looked at this model before and while I'm not able to find it,
I recall court cases that ruled against this type of finical agreement.

~~~
jvrossb
Make School (also YC, W12), has offered income based repayment since 2014 for
our college program www.makeschool.com/product-college. There are now 3
cohorts of students who have gotten jobs and paid us under this model and a
4th is entering this fall.

------
minikomi
For those outside of the US take note:

    
    
        Just a note: We are currently unable to offer income-based 
        repayment outside of the United States. You can still attend
        Lambda School, but you would have
        to pay at least $10,000 up-front

~~~
ekevjn
Do you have plan to support student outside us so they will have a change to
get remote job or even full-time job?

------
segmondy
How long does the student have to wait before getting a job to void the
agreement? What if a student takes the class, can't get a job, then spends 6
months of their own time on MOOC and gets a job should they still pay 17%?

------
rajacombinator
Mixed feelings ... 50k/yr hardly sounds like a successful placement for a semi
competent programmer, more like a pipeline to the gulag in a profession that's
notoriously bad at obtaining fair wages. (I presume OP will be teaching the
segment on living in your car in Palo Alto ... ;p ) However, I've always been
curious about this business model for schools and hope it succeeds!

~~~
austenallred
The number is $50k because of folks in smaller/more rural areas. There $50k
can be quite a lot.

~~~
jhall1468
Yes it can, which is why using a flat pretax minimum is absolutely silly. $50k
in Seattle isn't living confortably, but with your cut it's $41.5k. That's
less than a bank teller makes.

You should have a COL adjusted minimum. Otherwise you'll only be targeting
rural areas where most jobs aren't.

~~~
austenallred
Ya, we could, that just gets complicated really fast

------
sureste
Anyone can help me with a question I have?

What if I want to take this program from outside of the USA and want to work
remotely? Would this count as working in the USA? (Which is one of the
questions on the form)

~~~
austenallred
No, it's almost impossible for us to guarantee that kind of a job.

------
bambataa
I think this is an excellent idea. There definitely is a gap in the market for
non-CS grads who want to get a more robust grounding than a ten-week bootcamp
can offer.

I'm interested in how you select applicants but your website doesn't let me
look at the application process. Your funding model means selecting the right
students is crucial as you carry the risk. How do you select from the
candidates? Are they meant to be already quite experienced? I looked through
the curriculum and it seems very intense even for someone with a bit of coding
experience. How do you make sure people keep up the pace?

~~~
austenallred
We keep that kind of close to the chest. We have pre course work for
applicants to complete, and let's say we can learn a lot from that.

------
adrianmui
Viking Code School grad here. Really happy more institutions are implementing
this method. I didn't have to take loans to start my journey in Full Stack
development. It's been the best decision of my life.

------
omot
I'm kind of nervous that there's a lack of discrete math in the courses
listed. I believe it's a fundamental requirement to gain understanding of the
underlying intuition behind a lot of CS.

------
literallycancer
Here's an idea: go live in a cheaper country, pay couple grand for the whole
degree. No one will have heard of the school, but that's the case anyway
unless you go to the few top US schools.

------
sailfast
I like that this model has become available and wish you luck! Always good to
have options for getting this education.

One pedantic but perhaps important nit to pick: I would not recommend the
language "especially if you come from a lower-class background". Lower income,
reduced opportunity, lower education, etc but lower class reads like you're
coming from a position of privilege that looks down on potential students.

~~~
austenallred
Good point, thanks!

------
sethbannon
How is this different than Make School's model (also a YC company)? I
understand they've been doing this for some time, and even offer a stipend to
people who are accepted in the program to help pay for housing and other
costs.

[https://www.makeschool.com/product-
college/admissions#tuitio...](https://www.makeschool.com/product-
college/admissions#tuition)

~~~
austenallred
A full ISA from Make School would cost you approximately $90,000, and would
require you to move to San Francisco for 2+ years. Nothing against Make
School, we're just going after a very different market.

------
londons_explore
Wonder how legal taking a percentage of future earnings forever is?

For example, could I sell you a car and say "the price is 1% of all your
future earnings"?

Legally I guess I'd have to say "The car is $30k, but I'm giving you a loan at
999% interest, with repayment demands capped at 1% of your salary (upon
production of salary evidence), and the loan to be forgiven in full in the
case of death".

------
bored
Do you offer opportunities for existing programmers who are looking to improve
their skills with the goal of getting a higher programmer salary?

~~~
austenallred
We're working on that. Not yet, probably three months out.

~~~
bored
Would the commission be less?

~~~
austenallred
Would probably have to be. Our risk is much less.

------
webwanderings
I was curious about the type of students you'd want to recruit. The type
you're featuring all seems to be out of college and have experience under
their belt.

Your schedule is full day learning. So now I wonder: are you targeting people
who are out of jobs? It seems a little confusing to understand your criteria
of recruiting students (I have not paid too much attention yet).

~~~
austenallred
There's not a "type" we're looking for; some of our best students barely
finished high school, let alone college.

Our schedule is full-time just because we're looking for people that are
dedicated. We're working on part-time, but have to be more careful with that,
as it would be about a year long.

~~~
webwanderings
But how would a person in high school dedicate full time learning 'how to
program'? That seems impossible. The same goes for full time college student.

Let's say I think I am dedicated (I know you'll have your own criteria on
identifying my dedication). Say that I am in high school. How do you expect me
to study during your defined hours full time? The best I could think of is
dedicating my full time hours during summer vacation (if I have to let go of
my part time job, camps, or home-work - testing, AP etc).

The same would apply when I am in college trying to get a degree.

In addition, I also don't see how any full time working individual could find
time to accommodate learning schedule during the day. Say that I may be
looking to change career.

~~~
jansho
I think the concept is awesome and I hope that my comment won't be taken as
cynical:

I get the dedication part but some people may have commitments that they can't
avoid at all - childcare, for example. Having commitments shouldn't be
confused with lacking dedication, IMO. For me, the biggest USP about a remote
school, or any MOOC really, is the flexibility that it offers. _Structured_ ,
yes, but 3-5 hours a day would be more manageable than 9-5 five days a week.
That will probably add extra months to the course though - but that's OK, a
Masters takes 1-2 years for comparison.

Of course Lambda instructors are world-class, but technically you _can_ train
yourself; there are very good guides signposting to free resources, and online
communities for support. It might not be to the level of depth that the Lambda
course offers, but is indepth knowledge really a key employability trait? (I'm
not questioning the value of knowledge.) After all, many recruiters now
emphasise on having a good portfolio over a certificate.

But hey this is more like a feedback than a criticism. I sincerely think that
this concept is super and hope that the Academy succeeds :)

~~~
austenallred
Ya we're working on part-time, it just comes with other complications.

------
hysan
Out of curiosity, I signed up for the _JavaScript Mini Code Bootcamp -
Archive_ to evaluate the quality of the lectures. I've been watching/listening
to the first 20+ min and so far, I'm quite skeptical of the quality of the
instruction. Are the archives some sort of practice run or are they
reminiscent of the actual lectures?

~~~
austenallred
That's where we test new instructors. It's a class taught to thousands of
people at once, so very, very different.

~~~
hysan
I see. Thanks for answering that. If you don't mind, I have some follow-up
questions then (since I'm considering doing this as a way to get back into a
programming career and possibly recommending this to a friend's friend who has
been looking for a bootcamp to change careers):

* What is the style for the actual lectures?

* Are you using any tools aside from screencasting and chat to supplement the lectures?

* Your courses are listed as full time, 9-6 affairs. What is the typical schedule over the course of the day?

* Is there any room in the course/syllabus for the instructors to help students with questions about related topics not included in the syllabus? For example, a quick glance shows that you cover React Native's ListView but I see no mention of the newer FlatList or SectionList.

* Related, do you discuss why certain tools are chosen to be taught over others? And how to choose a library to use when presented with several seemingly similar options? For example, XMLHttpRequest vs fetch vs SuperAgent vs etc. vs your choice of axios. Same with react-navigation over other libraries. People unfamiliar with the field will undoubtedly hear about these other libraries or even get asked about them, so I'm a bit concerned about recommending this to someone without any background in programming at all.

~~~
austenallred
Ok, style for the actual class: We start the day out with a code challenge,
then move into a mini lecture (a few students with one instructor) and a mini
project you'll work on with a pair programming partner. Then another short
lecture and you'll begin working on your main project.

If you're ever stuck you jump onto our #help channel on Slack and there's
instantly someone available to help out. Chances are they've seen that problem
before.

Once you're finished with your challenge or project you'll submit it as a pull
request (we use Github for everything) and you'll have a code review.
Sometimes those are in person, sometimes they're just comments left on code.

We have frequent brown bag lectures (lectures with industry experts) and
office hours with instructors to discuss, well, anything.

Hope that helps!

~~~
hysan
Thanks for getting back to me. It sounds a bit geared towards people who have
enough experience to know what to ask, so I'm not sure if this is something I
would recommend to someone coming from a completely different field. Would
that be an accurate assessment of the learning style?

Also, I'm still unsure about what tools will be used as part of the lectures.
If it's really just screencasting + chat, I can't believe that the material
will be conveyed all that well. At least as evidenced by how prepared your
instructors seemed in the _Archive_ videos. Sorry if it's a bit harsh, but my
expectations are a bit high since I'm coming from a background that includes 5
years of teaching ESL.

~~~
austenallred
It's not a screencast, it's a video conference. We use Zoom.us. So it's a
multi way conversation, just like any classroom would be.

Would be curious to know what disappointed you in the archive videos. I have a
guess, but that's just my assumption.

------
uniclaude
Amazing! I'm pleased to see that there are startups out here trying to solve
this type of problems. Taking the risk is ballsy and should be rewarded!

Questions!

\- Do you plan to extend the syllabus to something more fundamental? Asking
because you have some C++ and already go further than bootcamps, so I'm
wondering if you intend to pursue this direction and get closer to a formal CS
education.

\- Do you plan to work on giving some sort of degrees later? Some countries
require degrees for immigration, which is a door that bootcamps do not open.
By offering degrees, you open the global market to your students, and in an
increasingly connected world, it can make a huge difference. I basically owe
my quality of life to the mobility I got thanks to my degree, and this is
something I wish to everyone.

Massive Kudos to you guys! I hope you will eventually offer the same service
to students outside of the US. The market is large.

~~~
austenallred
1\. We think we're already covering a lot of the fundamentals. We're not all
the way yet, but we're within striking distance of a CS degree.

2\. To give a "degree" you have to be accredited, which brings all sorts of
ridiculous rules along with it that don't really make sense. So yes, but we're
not ready to jump through those hoops yet.

------
arikrak
Nice to offer a pay-it-later approach (like App Academy) but seems a bit
expensive for an online course?

~~~
austenallred
The expense of these courses is instructors, regardless of where the course is
held.

------
Seylerius
This is an awesome idea. What I'd really like to know, however, is if any of
the existing loan options will accept this as schooling in order to loan a
student money for living expenses. Some students already have a family, and
thus they cannot crash at a flophouse.

~~~
austenallred
It likely depends on who you talk to. We probably don't have a long enough of
a history for most, but eventually housing is something we'd like to have a
fund for ourselves.

------
txttran
Let's say I make $60k a year now in an unrelated field and I join your school,
but after graduating, I was unable to find a job in software.

Would I still be on the hook to pay you 17% of my income despite not landing a
programming job?

~~~
austenallred
No, you'd never pay us a dime.

------
rovek
> We train people to become software engineers, and we charge nothing until a
> student gets a software job that pays more than $50k/yr. At that point we
> take 17% of income for two years (capped at a maximum of $30k total).

This is similar to how all university tuition fees in the UK work, with
slightly different numbers. A very sensible solution to the astronomical cost
of education, provided people want to get jobs.

In the current UK scheme you pay 9% of the amount you earn over £21,000, or
nothing while you earn less than that. Debt written off after something like
25 years if unpaid.

------
richardgill88
This is great!

I've trained 3 people to code using a similar meta-course I built. It's more
of an apprenticeship scheme (they work for me once they get good enough).
[https://github.com/z-dev/learn-programming](https://github.com/z-dev/learn-
programming)

From that experience I think this idea could do well. I think no-win-no-fee
education like this will be popular. I also think that a scheme like this
could do a lot of social good and help people who might not want to go to
University.

Good luck :)

------
veb
This is definitely one of the more interesting ideas/launches that I've seen
on HN recently, congrats! I'll definitely be following you guys to see what
you get up to.

~~~
austenallred
Thanks!

------
eps
Not getting a job is one risk. Loosing the interest in CS is another.

I know a fellow who was very much "into computers," decided to become a
programmer, signed up for the (offline) classes and then had massive troubles
trying to understand how a _do-while_ construct works. He was in mid-20s back
when it happened, spoke 3 languages and had a day job as a nurse. He did
finish the course, got his grades, but ultimatley lost all the interest and
never got into IT.

------
all_blue_chucks
Can you fail out of this program? If not, the degree is worthless. If so, the
program wastes all the money it spent educating you.

The incentives at play here seem a bit out of whack...

~~~
austenallred
Of course you can fail out. We have to build that into our risk model.

------
diegoperini
Computer Science and Computer Engineering are two different things and the
proposed curriculum cover none of these completely. The term CS education
therefor is misleading. I would suggest "Introduction to Computer
Engineering".

> "At that point we take 17% of income for two years"

This is insane for too many reasons. What happens when the applicant change
jobs, goes abroad, gets fired, quits, creates her own company?

------
dragonfax
This isn't new. And with schools like this, they say "good job" or tech job,
but they mean "any job" (that pays over 50k). I've had friends screwed by this
before.

If you can't get hired because you went to a "dev bootcamp" or just aren't
good enough with code after spending all that time in school, they'll come
after your for that car mechanic pay check.

~~~
austenallred
That's simply not true

~~~
ztratar
Actually it is.

[https://www.appacademy.io/](https://www.appacademy.io/)

~~~
austenallred
I was referring to the part about us taking a percentage if you're not working
as an engineer. Of course there are other schools that use income share
agreements.

~~~
lquist
Afaik App Academy only collects for software engineering jobs.

------
jeron
What are the differences between this and Make School?

~~~
austenallred
A lot of things.

We're online-only, focus on CS not building apps, 6 months long (vs 2 yrs), a
bit less expensive, and generally speaking target different markets.

I don't have anything bad to say about Make School. Have never met them, but
they seem like they're doing a fine job!

~~~
jvrossb
Hey Austen - we should meet!

We have a 4 term sequence of CS courses that cover most if not all the topics
listed on your curriculum page. These topics are also touched upon and put to
practice in our mobile, web, and to some extent our data science courses.

It's only our Summer Academy which caters to students enrolled at others
schools on summer vacation which focuses on app or VR development.

~~~
austenallred
Cool. Ya we should meet sometime.

------
drumttocs8
What if the student decides to use those skills to create their own startup,
instead of getting a regular job? How would you get paid?

~~~
austenallred
We still take a percentage of income. So we'll be rooting for you!

------
patwalls
App Academy has the same business model in SF and NY. I went there along with
thousands of others. Cool that this is online though.

------
r0brodz
Im 32 and have 4 kids. I would love to excel at this program and reach high
coding experience. I really am struggling economicly.

~~~
austenallred
Apply!

~~~
r0brodz
Wish I could. I work full time at 12 bucks per hr as a pipefitter helper. I so
wish we had basic income or some kind of help so I could do thid. There is
nothing more in this planet I want most is to be a computer scientist.

------
jansho
What's the application criteria like? I notice that the current students
listed in the website all have some sort of technical/reputable background
(one even had an MS in Computer Science already!) Does this mean that the
computer science course is not for complete beginners?

I also noticed a mini web dev bootcamp, when will this be launched?

Thanks :)

~~~
austenallred
The application criteria is pretty much that we can only accept n% of students
(currently it's a little less than 3%), so those are the most "credentialed"
students, but probably not representative.

It's vague, but what we really look for is dedication and a love for
programming itself (as opposed to wanting to make more money), which exhibits
itself in a variety of ways.

We hope to move to a model soon where as long as you complete code challenge
x, you're enrolled, but we're not there.

------
jplank1983
What happens if I complete the curriculum and then decide to seek employment
in a different field? Do I still pay?

------
sergiotapia
Do you take older people >50 years old with zero programming experience? I
want to forward this to someone.

~~~
austenallred
Yes!

~~~
byproxy
That's cool, but isn't there an inherent ageism in the industry that would
prevent someone of that vintage from getting a job? Especially without a broad
resume..

I'm all for the idea of older folk getting tech jobs (I'd like to be one
myself, someday), but it seems like a larger risk on your part.

~~~
austenallred
There may be some ageism, but there are enough employers that don't care that
we're more than OK to take that risk.

------
smaps
Any potential for time changes in the future? I'm on EST and being in a class
M-F 12p-9p is a bit harsh.

~~~
austenallred
We're always trying to figure that out, but it's the time that (barely) works
for all parties

------
bearcobra
Do you plan on accepting students from outside the US, and if so how does that
change your model?

~~~
austenallred
We will open in the EU and Canada soon.

~~~
tu7001
Hm... EU, Great Britain is still in the EU, but will not be soon; are you
going to accept from there?

------
mediocrejoker
It's too bad this is US only.

------
leeronisrael
CC: Treehouse Seems equivalent to their "tech degree" which costs $199/mo

~~~
sunjieming
Well, self-paced options typically have very low graduation rates. It's hard
to compare a self-paced online course to something that's live, full-time and
>40 hours a week with instructors, TAs, etc.

------
grondilu
So basically it's a student loan with a friendly debt collection policy?

~~~
austenallred
I don't know of a student loan that disappears if you don't get a job that
pays more than $50,000/yr

~~~
grondilu
Now you do.

~~~
austenallred
Ha!

------
vimarshk
Great idea. Great business model. I think the issue will be for the engineers
who graduate to get over the bias that software companies have today over
hiring from a code bootcamp/code school.

~~~
austenallred
Yeah, we hope to be the antidote to that and create our own brand.

------
omalleyt
Brilliant, I've long thought that all universities should run under this model
(although when applied to the humanities I can hear in my head the 3000 years
of the land owning, non-laboring intelligentsia protesting about the noble
virtues of an education uncorrupted by the banalities of productive yada
yada...) But anyway back to CS.

1) Risk is pooled in the institution rather than distributed amongst the
students, which is the textbook way to deal with uncorrelated risk.

2) The incentive of the university and the student are aligned as much as
possible

3) By putting costs and benefits into a form with equal time horizons,
disadvantaged students no longer need to rely on the generosity of governments
or private lenders for upfront cash.

The only thing I'd always questioned was whether such a scheme as described
above could pass legal muster, as it bears a resemblance to involuntary
servitude, as well as requiring access to income statements. I've never heard
of anyone but the govt placing liens on income. I'm hoping a workaround has
been found, because from a strictly incentive based analogy, this model has
the potential to do to modern education what patent law did to manufacturing

~~~
aphextron
>Brilliant, I've long thought that all universities should run under this
model

I strongly disagree. Let universities be universities. The point of a
university is to develop your mind, not train for a job. There's no reason we
cannot have a parallel vocational system which teaches people practical
skills. Let the market decide which one better serves students.

~~~
austenallred
If that's what universities are, that's fine, but I'd argue that's not why the
vast majority of students attend a University.

~~~
aphextron
Completely agreed. The US needs a robust vocational system a la Germany to
fill in the gaps.

------
b34r
I applaud that you aren’t charging a base tuition in addition to your income-
based repayment. 30k for a useful education, job placement assistance, and
community is worth it.

------
balls187
How will you prevent this from becoming predatory as pressure for improving
the bottom line mounts?

It feels like a very fine line between altruism and taking advantage of
ignorance.

~~~
austenallred
I'm not sure how to answer that question; if you are giving people a job it's
hard to be too predatory so long as you charge reasonable rates. We simply try
to be honest and fair up-front.

~~~
balls187
> so long as you charge reasonable rates. We simply try to be honest and fair
> up-front.

And what is your plan to prevent you from changing your terms later?

~~~
austenallred
You sign an agreement.

------
j_s
Austen, this is going a bit meta but why launch at ~4pm Eastern time instead
of 8am? The post has done pretty well anyway - glad to see you hitting the
big-time!

~~~
austenallred
When you launch in YC you do so in coordination with the HN team. WE weren't
scheduled for today, but another company was unresponsive so we stole the
(late) spot.

------
jrs95
I really hope this model ends up growing beyond CS and into other fields as
well. The traditional 4 year university model could definitely use the
competition.

~~~
austenallred
We're launching other programs soon, starting with AI/Machine Learning,
bioinformatics, and data science.

We plan on becoming a full blown university at some point.

------
haskellandchill
Awesome, I'd love to be running something like this IRL with room and board
like another commenter mentioned. Will settle for being a hiring partner :)

~~~
austenallred
Room and board is something we're working on.

------
francogt
I remember the Functional Programming course you guys taught. Any chance of
putting that course in the "Free Course Archives" :)

~~~
austenallred
Sure :)

------
dlet
Love the concept! What about the people who want to freelance after the
program? What will be the fees for them?

~~~
austenallred
The same! It's income-based regardless of where you work.

------
icpmacdo
Is the content your teaching currently openly available or are there plans to
make it available in the future?

~~~
austenallred
We have no immediate plans to do that, but honestly finding content isn't the
hard part of learning for most people; there are some pretty great resources
out there for free.

------
LaikaF
Well I applied. Hope I get in.

Any idea what the acceptance rate is like?

What sort of time frame will you hear back if you got accepted or not?

~~~
austenallred
2-3%

You'll hear back within a couple weeks.

------
RUG3Y
I need the education but I already have a job. Two years ago, I would have
jumped into this feet first.

------
francogt
Do you accept or plan on accepting international students?

~~~
austenallred
Working on it. It comes with a lot of complications.

------
austinlyons
Who are the founders?

------
gigatexal
Hmm kudos. I’ll have to look into this.

------
kareemsabri
Looking for any instructors/TAs?

~~~
austenallred
Yes. careers@lambdaschool.com

------
maxxxxx
That's how public education should work in my view. Repay a certain percentage
of your income for a certain amount of time.

~~~
brewdad
We use property values as a proxy for income. It is by no means a perfect
substitute, but it seems to work ok. The primary drawback being that wealthier
districts can raise more money than poorer ones. This would still be an issue
if we used income directly though.

------
wanghq
Why call it Lambda?

~~~
wmf
Why call a VC fund Y Combinator? People love borrowing random CS terms for
company names.

------
qwer7y
This is awesome!

------
supernumerary
Recurse Center 2.0 ...

~~~
austenallred
Eh, kind of. We're a structured class with people teaching you full-time.

------
corporateslave2
Services like this will flood the job market. I wish I could get out of
engineering

~~~
austenallred
There's a service called college that millions of people begin each year.
We'll barely be a drop in the bucket.

The demand for engineers is growing rapidly. You'll be just fine.

~~~
corporateslave2
Right but this is zero upfront cost. Kudos to you guys if it works out

~~~
wyclif
If you love barriers to entry for others so much, you should go into a
licensed profession like real estate or dentistry.

------
Humphrey
Australia has the best of all of this already to study at any Australian
University!

\- Depending on your social-economic background, The government pays you a
cost-of-living income [1],

\- pays your university fees [2] which are tiny compared to US fees,

\- and you repay back 4%/year once your have an income > than approx A$55,000.

17% looks very painful in comparison!

Of cause, you need to be an Australian, so it probably doesn't help most of
you!

[1] Depending on your Probably actually less than cost of living, so most
students also work a day or more a week while studying.

[2] They cover the university fees -- You still need to pay for books, and
other similar expenses up front.

~~~
usegolang
4% a year for how long and what's the cap? What if you never get a job? Any
other restrictions?

Ps - forgive my shortness I'm on mobile.

~~~
notoriousjpg
4% until you pay it off. The "interest" on your loan is pegged at inflation.
If you never get a job you never pay it back. This is actually a problem for
the gov, where older students study but never find a job in their field.

Great scheme overall though.

