
Flatiron School settles for operating without license, employment/salary claims - anaxag0ras
https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/ag-schneiderman-announces-375000-settlement-flatiron-computer-coding-school-operating
======
jefftk
"Between January and June 2017, Flatiron claimed that 98.5% of its students
received employment less than 180 days after graduation and that Flatiron
graduates had an average salary of $74,447. However, Flatiron did not disclose
clearly and conspicuously that the 98.5% employment rate included not only
full time salaried employees but also apprentices, contract employees and
self-employed freelance workers, some who were employed for less than twelve
weeks. Similarly, Flatiron failed to clearly and conspicuously disclose that
its $74,447 average salary claim included full time employed graduates only,
which represent only 58% of classroom graduates and 39% of online graduates."

Good to crack down on this.

"In order to obtain a SED license, a non-degree granting career school must
meet a number of criteria, including using an approved curriculum and
employing a licensed director and teachers."

This is worrying. Part of why these bootcamps have been a valuable addition is
that they've been able to use their own curricula and train their own
teachers.

~~~
segmondy
58% of classroom graduates making $74,447 average seems better than most
universities out there. Too bad they had to lie about it.

~~~
arkades
Is it better than a university CS degree?

~~~
jcwayne
After accounting for the difference in cost and time required, quite possibly.

~~~
learc83
They have a much lower acceptance rate than the vast majority of CS programs.

You'd need to compare them to Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Berkeley etc...

~~~
Dtrane
Being intellectually honest, I'd have to say that they aren't really
comparable. The low acceptance rate is true, but the sheer amount of
completely unacceptable applications that are filled out after seeing one of
these "make 75k in 3 months" ads contributes heavily to the percentage.

I attended this school and while most of my classmates were highly-intelligent
people of diverse backgrounds, I can absolutely say it is much easier to get
into Flatiron school than any of the programs listed above.

~~~
sleigh-bells
I've heard that many people who don't know any coding at all often apply to
bootcamps and simply just flunk the first coding assessment they get. They
probably help account for much of the low admissions rate at any half decent
bootcamp (that have coding assessments).

------
dopamean
Though it may seem obvious to people here (on HN) this is a much bigger
problem in the industry than people realize. In many ways these bootcamps are
repeating the problems found at trade schools in the past. I taught at one for
a year, MakerSquare, and found it to be a rewarding and positive experience
however I know people at others, including the company that ended up buying
MakerSquare who have had different experiences.

When I worked MakerSquare about three years ago they, Hack Reactor, and I
think Dev Bootcamp were trying to lead an initiative that would lead to
standardized reporting of hiring stats. This was something we were excited
about at MakerSquare because our hiring stats were legitimately great at the
time and we knew that in many cases this wasn't true of our competitors. When
Hack Reactor bought the company it was assuring to see that they were finding
similar success.

One thing that concerns me today, however, is that I still see ads on Facebook
and other places for Hack Reactor's immersive program that report the exact
same stats they were reporting three years ago. I find it very, very hard to
believe those numbers are still accurate. In fact I'd go so far as to say they
must be lying. They expanded their program dramatically through acquisition
(MakerSquare and others) and then ramping up a very large "remote" program (a
program that follows the same curriculum but taught entirely online). When I
left MakerSquare (then acquired by Hack Reactor) I was under the impression
that career services were not provided for remote students. They must be
messing with the numbers somehow.

There needs to be more honesty in the industry because I believe there really
is a great opportunity to do good.

~~~
shawndrost
Hi there -- I'm a cofounder at Hack Reactor.

I agree with your headline: this is a much bigger problem than people realize.
The solution is CIRR ([http://cirr.org](http://cirr.org)). CIRR schools --
including Hack Reactor -- generally report outcome statistics that are similar
to Course Report's third-party industry averages (~70% placement rate),
whereas non-CIRR schools generally report 9X%.

It sounds like you've gotten the a couple of wrong impressions about Hack
Reactor. No offense taken (thanks for the kind words too!) and I hope you
don't mind if I issue some corrections:

We don't use out-of-date statistics in our marketing, and we really don't
market based off of statistics at all. It is hard to do so given the problem
you pointed out. If you see out-of-date statistics anywhere, it is a grave
error that I would love to correct. Please screenshot and email to
shawn@hackreactor.com. Current statistics are on our site and cirr.org.

Students in our remote program receive the same career services that our other
campuses do: about a third of student-facing staff work full-time on helping
alums get jobs. The program is not very large (~20 students per cohort) and is
one of our better-performing "campuses".

~~~
adamzerner
> third-party industry averages (~70% placement rate)

The ~70% placement rate seems to refer to what percentage of applicants get
full time jobs within 6 months of graduating. For within 3 months of
graduating, the placement rate seems to drop to 30-40%. (See
[https://cirr.org/data](https://cirr.org/data))

~~~
shawndrost
I was referring to Course Report's third-party industry averages, 75.2% within
180 days.

[https://www.coursereport.com/reports/2016-coding-bootcamp-
jo...](https://www.coursereport.com/reports/2016-coding-bootcamp-job-
placement-demographics-report)

What you said is also true though.

------
k8si
Funny to look back at this now:
[https://nyti.ms/2vtd04V](https://nyti.ms/2vtd04V)

NYT on 24 August 2017: "The Flatiron School in New York may have discovered
one path. Founded in 2012, Flatiron has a single campus in downtown Manhattan
and its main offering is a 15-week immersive coding program with a $15,000
price tag. More than 95 percent of its 1,000 graduates there have landed
coding jobs."

 __ _two months later_ __

NY AG, 17 October 2017: "However, Flatiron did not disclose clearly and
conspicuously that the 98.5% employment rate included not only full time
salaried employees but also apprentices, contract employees and self-employed
freelance workers, some who were employed for less than twelve weeks.
Similarly, Flatiron failed to clearly and conspicuously disclose that its
$74,447 average salary claim included full time employed graduates only, which
represent only 58% of classroom graduates and 39% of online graduates."

~~~
rdiddly
Makes the Times look pretty stupid and/or like shills either unwitting or
paid!

~~~
WoodenChair
I don't know why you're being downvoted. The epitome of so-called "fake news"
is a newspaper reprinting stats a private corporation provides it in a matter-
of-fact tone as the Times did here.

Instead of writing, "More than 95 percent of its 1,000 graduates there have
landed coding jobs." The Times should've written " _Flatiron claims_ more than
95 percent of its 1,000 graduates there have landed coding jobs." Those two
words _Flatiron claims_ are the difference between reporting and restating as
fact.

~~~
andrestan
In fairness to the Times I wouldn't call this fake news; just slightly sloppy
reporting. Fake news implies that it's deliberately misleading which this
doesn't appear to be. They are simply repeating claims.

~~~
topgunsarg
Flatiron was going around parading themselves as the only coding school to get
their job statistics audited by a third party, so I don't necessarily blame
the NYT for believing their claims.

Ironic that the only audited school is now the one having issues with
misleading statistics.

------
finnh
Duke Law School maintains a 100% post-graduation employment rate by ... paying
its otherwise jobless graduates at the exact moment the statistics are
counted.

[https://abovethelaw.com/2010/06/the-secret-
to-100-employed-a...](https://abovethelaw.com/2010/06/the-secret-
to-100-employed-at-graduation-dukes-bridge-to-practice/)

~~~
bdcravens
Many coding schools also hire graduates as teaching assistants.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
At the bootcamp I went to, this was below "get a job at Google" and above "get
a job at a generic start-up" in desirability. It both paid well and providing
excellent networking opportunities.

~~~
ryancouto
yep ^ it also provided a way to work on your algo/interview questions for a
few more months without having to worry about money. the job hunt can take
upwards of 3 or 4 months, and it's a lot easier to get a good job if you
already have an income.

------
JessRudder
The issue isn't fake employment stats.

If you read the AG release, the complaint was that "Flatiron did not disclose
clearly and conspicuously" what the 98.5% and $75k numbers consisted of.

This information was included, in detail, in each of their job reports. This
is from their earliest one from December of 2014:

"Of the 225 job seeking graduates with salary information available:

a. 162 accepted full-time salaried roles,

b. Forty-one accepted paid apprenticeships (An apprenticeship is defined as a
paid position of defined duration, usually 8-12 weeks, often paid hourly and
on a contract basis. Often an apprenticeship is used to evaluate a candidate
for full time salaried status),

c. Twelve accepted contractor positions (A contractor position is defined as
full-time or voluntary part-time, paid at market rate, and without the
expectation that the initial rate is temporary and will be re-evaluated in 3-6
months).

d. Ten accepted freelance opportunities."

"7\. Initial compensation for the full-time salaried roles ranged as follows:

a. Salary range of $40,000-$59,999 – nine individuals,

b. Salary range of $60,000-$69,999 – forty-six individuals,

c. Salary range of $70,000-$79,999 – forty-four individuals,

d. Salary range of $80,000-$89,999 – thirty-eight individuals,

e. Salary range of $90,000+ - nineteen "

On the web pages that contained the 98.5% and 74k figures, there was a link to
download the report with the detailed data. The AG did not think that was
clear enough for consumers - likely because the average consumer isn't going
to download and read the details.

There's a difference between saying the data wasn't clear enough and the data
was fraudulent. In this case, they are not disputing the numbers, they were
disputing the marketing around those numbers.

Full Disclosure: I am a Flatiron alum and I worked at Flatiron for 3 years. I
have problems with the top-level management team and would not work for any of
them again. None of my reasons are related to their desire and ability to
create great outcomes for the students that come through Flatiron School. I
would (and have) recommend the immersive programs to people who want to start
careers in web development.

~~~
rahimnathwani
It seems the headline numbers were intentionally misleading, not just not
'clear enough'.

~~~
acjohnson55
I would agree, and I think a fine of this magnitude seems appropriate. "Buyer
beware" is not a good excuse. In dream world where people have infinite time
to parse fine print, it maybe could work. But in the real world, there is
tremendous information asymmetry at play. A _school_ should be focused on how
to present information in a way that can be readily understood.

------
unclesaamm
I know some folks who graduated from Galvanize's Data Science program. They
were told that historically 90% of graduates find jobs in 6 months. She is 6
months out, and only half of her cohort has a job.

~~~
jerrytsai
As someone who attended that program, the statistics are rosier than they're
reporting. I have examined the employment claims, and know the program pretty
well.

I believe the 90% claim, historically, is close to valid. A fairer
representation might have been 5 in 6 (83.3%), but it was pretty close to the
mark. You can see where people in the early cohorts are working, and the
success rate is very high.

What has changed? (1) Job market is more competitive. There are more
"graduates" of "boot camp"s out there, as well as graduates of accredited
degree programs.

(2) Admissions standards have dropped. With more boot camps, there are more
students attending boot camps everywhere. Galvanize used to admit half as many
students. Correspondingly, less qualified applicants are attending boot camps
than before. More than half the reason prior Galvanize graduates succeeded in
obtaining data-scientific positions was because many of them were already very
well qualified for many STEM jobs _before_ entering the program.

(3) Hiring standards have tightened. With a body of data scientists out there,
organizations don't need to hire newbies.

Boot camps can augment your résumé, but can't substitute for lack of relevant
experience. A data science bootcamp will have great difficulty in magically
taking a person from 0 to a data scientist job offer in the absence of
relevant experience. Many of the people I've seen struggle to obtain
employment had thin résumés before entering the program or had weak interview
skills.

~~~
huac
The 90% number might be valid historically, but as we all know, the more
important number is your chance moving forward.

------
alehul
An HN user's perspective as a Flatiron student, from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11734796](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11734796)

> One of the things that attracted me to Flatiron School was their audited
> jobs placement report. Very detailed statistics about how many students
> graduate, how long it takes them to find jobs, and how much they earn. I've
> never seen traditional colleges hold themselves to that standard of
> disclosure.

Apparently these phony statistics played a huge role in many student's choices
to attend.

edit: 'illegitimate' or 'misleading' would apparently be a better choice than
'phony.'

~~~
aczerepinski
That quote is from me, and it’s true that the (apparently illegitimate) stats
influenced my decision to attend Flatiron. It’s very possible that I would
have made other choices if the numbers looked different.

Still, at the end of the day I’m getting a lot more mileage out of my Flatiron
experience than I have from any of my three degrees from “real” accredited
schools.

I really enjoy my job as a dev, and based on the amount of recruiter spam I
get, feel that I have lots of flexibility and options should I ever need them.

I hope that whatever changes arise from this don’t impede Flatiron from making
constant changes to their curriculum, and employing amazing non-certified
instructors like the ones I am honored to have studied with.

~~~
alehul
Just to be super clear, I didn't mean to pass any judgement on the choice of
attending nonetheless. Bootcamps seem like a great value and I'm glad to hear
you're doing well!

------
tyingq
_" Under today’s agreement, Flatiron will pay $375,000 in restitution to
eligible graduates"_

That's better than a fine. Though, it does mention 1000 students total, so
perhaps not enough.

~~~
1_800_UNICORN
_The school, which has taught approximately 1,000 students, charges students
between $12,000 and $15,000 for a 12 to 16 week in-person class and
approximately $1,500 a month for online coding classes._

Let's assume a very conservative estimate of 800 students doing 1 of online
work, and 200 students paying $12k for a class. That works out to $1.2M in
online tuition, and $2.4M in in-person tuition. Given how conservative my
estimate is, $375k seems like a pittance for operating without a license and
lying about success rates.

~~~
sevensor
It's funny, I did the same math and concluded there's no way they profited
enough from this scheme to cover the cost of noncompliance. Even if they took
$3.6M in revenue, they had to pay salaries, expensive rent, and overhead for 5
years. That's _barely_ scraping by. Hopefully they're sitting on a pile of
investor money they can use to pay this settlement.

~~~
amcooper
You're forgetting the dropouts. For every online student who graduates from
Flatiron, there are many—maybe a dozen, maybe more—who drop out. Flatiron
bills online students monthly, so they're raking in a good deal of money from
dropouts who can't get their money back.

------
obiefernandez
I was a hiring manager at a large shop in NYC. During that time I hired and
worked with Flatiron School graduates. I know it's just anecdotal evidence,
but I found them to be extremely competent, driven and bright, even in
comparison to my non-bootcamp people, maybe even more so.

Jeff Casimir, admittedly somewhat biased, can lay claim to being one of the
world's top experts on running code bootcamps. He has a great writeup about it
here: [https://medium.com/@turingschool/why-i-recommend-flatiron-
sc...](https://medium.com/@turingschool/why-i-recommend-flatiron-
school-c4695a7894b4)

I would give Avi and Flatiron School the benefit of the doubt in this case. I
don't think they were out to do anything malicious or fraudulent.

------
msl341
I was a student at Hack Reactor Remote. They were supposed to be one of the
best bootcamps. I don't know how they do it, but I feel like their stats are
completely false. Most of the members in my cohort are still unemployed and
they provide little guidance. They might have been good 5 years ago, but it
seems times have changed.

~~~
bdcravens
Do you feel qualified after your bootcamp experience? I think there will
always be those with a developer mindset, and even already writing code, that
join a bootcamp, and those will be the ones capable of getting hired and being
productive. I feel that the bootcamps leverage that to pitch to another group:
those who haven't coded before, and want some of that good cheddar. In the end
they aren't really ready to professionally exercise those skills without
significant hand-holding, which most employers aren't interested in. (Though
some may be interested in growing developers with novice-level skills at a
beginning salary at 1/2 or less of the typical junior-level)

------
ron22
Not sure I understand the misleading salary/job type part.

Flatirons full jobs report for 2017 is here: Online:
[https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/69751/2017%20Online%20Outcome...](https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/69751/2017%20Online%20Outcomes%20Report.pdf)

Onsite:
[https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/69751/NYCJobsReport%20July%20...](https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/69751/NYCJobsReport%20July%202017%20-%20Full.pdf?t=1508207199598)

Looks like these reports were made before the fine. Inside these reports,
salary and job type are broken down and clearly stated.

Were these reports altered after the fact?

~~~
throwthisawayt
The fine is for the stats that were on places like their website. They didn't
define the stats clearly on their site.

------
nradov
Why are students willing to pay so much to for-profit coding boot camps? In
many areas you can learn the same skills from community colleges and
university extensions for far lower tuition. For example in the Bay Area the
UCSC Extension has a good reputation and offers several certificate programs
in software development.

[https://www.ucsc-extension.edu/certificate-
program/software-...](https://www.ucsc-extension.edu/certificate-
program/software-development)

~~~
everythingswan
I think the length of the program is a good place to start: 15 weeks full time
vs. 9-12 months full-time is a huge difference: [https://www.ucsc-
extension.edu/certificate-programs?cname=So...](https://www.ucsc-
extension.edu/certificate-
programs?cname=Software%20Engineering%20and%20Quality)

I know people I've talked to (work with a similar company) feel the weight of
family duty very heavily with career decisions. Having children or other
family to be responsible for is one of the things that holds people back.
Child care is incredibly expensive and having to carry that burden on your own
can be very taxing and can get in the way of your work if you're at home.

Shorter runway to earn more is a much more desirable option.

------
eqmvii
The shady employment outcome reporting issue mirrors a problem that has
plagued law schools for years.

In the worst cases, all 200 or so U.S. law schools would boast about high
percentages of students landing 6-figure starting salaries. In reality,
schools often only disclosed statistics based on students who completed
enrollment surveys.

[https://www.lawschooltransparency.com](https://www.lawschooltransparency.com)
came about as a resource to try to correct the record, but surely a lot of
young people got swept up in the marketing only to discover the real outlook
was much more grim.

~~~
ghaff
It's not surprising that law schools seem to figure prominently in these sorts
of stories. They used to be a fairly reliable meal ticket for liberal arts
majors who decide it's time to get a real job. These days, especially outside
of the very top schools, employment prospects aren't great and neither is pay
even for those who do find a position.

------
lr4444lr
I'm not the biggest job-hopper, but I've worked at 3 companies in the last 5
years in the NYC area, and have never once worked with, known anyone who's
once worked with, or knew a hiring manager who would even consider someone
whose only significant background in software was a coding bootcamp. For those
who've experienced it, are they hired out of desperation into firms that need
manpower and have enough more senior devs. to get them up to working
competency or what?

~~~
jasonshen
All of the last 3 companies I've worked at in NYC (Percolate, Etsy, and a seed
stage startup) have hired multiple engineers straight out of bootcamps. They
often were hired into junior roles but if they proved themselves, they would
advance. Bootcamp grads are hungry, they're usually taught how to code
collaboratively and how to push code to production (skills that are usually
less emphasized in CS curriculum). Bootcamps aren't going away and would
imagine your experience will be less and less common over time.

~~~
elliottcarlson
Same at Tumblr and Rent the Runway. As a hiring manager I have hired bootcamp
grads that showed plenty of promise, and they have all worked out great.

~~~
swyx
thanks for giving bootcamp grads a chance!

------
Dtrane
Disclaimer: Former Flatiron School student here. I'm seeing a lot of comments
(and the title) about fake employment stats. There is nowhere in the article
that alleges this. FS clearly publishes their jobs report and make it
extremely accessible from the homepage of their website. The AG does not
dispute any numbers in this jobs report.

The main allegations, aside from the SED license, are that they did not
clearly state their methods of arriving at these numbers on their marketing
materials. While that's true, I have faith that someone who has been thinking
seriously about a career change enough to apply to a costly educational
program such as Flatiron School would do their research.

Based on my experience, I don't find the numbers they report to be surprising.
I'm personally more than a year into my first job (was hired almost
immediately out of FS at almost exactly their 'average salary') and many if
not most of my classmates have a similar experience. Flatiron, like any
school, has students who put in the extra effort and students who expect to be
successful when they're done just because they showed up every day. Those
students tended to struggle throughout the course, and many needed to take
internships before landing a full-time gig.

When I first looked into Flatiron, I checked the jobs report. When I saw that
52% of grads landed a full-time job, my thought was not 'oh good this school
gets me a job.' It was 'I know with relative certainty that I will learn
enough to be useful in a full-time junior dev role if I continue to work my
ass off.'

------
throwaway-2942
It's no surprise that DevBootcamp and Iron Yard, who recently closed, are not
on the list of schools participating in CIRR (www.cirr.org/about). Also no
surprise that Flatiron is also not in CIRR. Basically, any bootcamp not in
CIRR is shady imho.

Full disclosure: I graduated from Hack Reactor in Austin, and got a job 2.5
months after graduation at a very reputable company in town. We also have 3
other HR grads, and a 30-ish person engineering team. This shit works. It's a
shame schools like Flatiron drag the industry name down.

Pardon the throwaway to not identify myself from my actual account, which has
lots of identify-able info.

------
josh_carterPDX
This is what has always concerned me. A lot of bootcamps are popping up making
it hard to figure out which ones are legitimate. On top of that, as a military
vet, I have worked hard to figure out how to get the G.I. Bill to be used with
these bootcamps. Today, not many qualify because of a number of variables, but
mostly include how the curriculum is dynamic.

Flatiron is one of the better orgs with a pretty good reputation. It's tough
to read that they've fallen short for their students. It causes a lot of
anxiety for those trying to utilize these schools to learn coding.

------
amigoingtodie
Does anyone have a recommendation for a good bootcamp?

I have an employee (graphic design) that has shown an aptitude in web
development, but I do not have the time to devote to mentoring him.

I can afford to send him to a bootcamp, but stories like this make me
hesitant.

Also, I have a front-end guy and a CS intern, who both could benefit from a
SQL bootcamp (as another poster mentioned, team development, source control,
and SQL do not seem to be emphasized in the CS curriculum). Is there such a
thing?

I am only interested in on-site, immersive experiences for all of them.

~~~
swyx
if you are only interested in onsite you should probably state where you are.
i'm at a NY bootcamp and you can get the full details at impostor-syndrome.org

~~~
amigoingtodie
I am willing to send them out of state, so as long as we are in the contine
tal US, it is a possibility.

------
milliondollar
What are best options for low cost self study version of these bootcamps? I'm
basically retired at 44, live outside of a city, and have time and motivation
but need serious instruction. I don't need the employment finding part of this
- but really like the structured "real world" focused curriculum vs some of
the more academic offerings I've seen online.

------
dominotw
>Reinvent your career at tech’s most trusted bootcamp

If this is "most trusted" , i wonder what shady stuff is going on in other
bootcamps.

~~~
FLUX-YOU
It's just marketing crap. The same way every company says "we're the leading
software company doing X". Where is this chart that you're leading? Is your
lead verified by someone else?

------
jthree
I wrote a pretty detailed breakdown of why this doesn’t actually mean what you
think it means: [https://medium.com/@turingschool/why-i-recommend-flatiron-
sc...](https://medium.com/@turingschool/why-i-recommend-flatiron-
school-c4695a7894b4)

~~~
jaf7
Thank you for writing this. As someone who is about to apply to several
software schools, the numerous and disparate opinions on HN about their
quality / honesty / placement can really affect signal:noise. Sometimes people
who appear to work in the industry say things that make it obvious they've
done little or no research. Still their statements affect my deliberation even
after parsing the numbers as carefully as I can--I'm an outsider making a
calculation from a distance. Having followed you for some time since your
CodeNewbie interview, I actually trust your words.

------
alphonsegaston
A while back, Zed Shaw was claiming to have some bootcamp takedown in the
works based on dirt from students and insiders. But then nothing ever came of
it. Not sure if he was afraid of getting sued or it was just posturing.

~~~
geofft
This is the same Zed Shaw who believes Python 3 isn't Turing-complete because
it's not compatible with Python 2? Why should anyone take him seriously?

~~~
fnovd
I'm not defending all of Shaw's ridiculous critiques of Python 3, but the
Turing-complete thing was a joke.

The conversation, IIRC, was something like this:

ZS: Why can't I import or translate Python2 into Python3?

P3: That would be a technically challenging thing to do.

ZS: But surely it is technically possible, even if it is pragmatically
unfeasible?

P3: We can't do it.

ZS: OK, Python 3 must be Turing-incomplete, ha ha ha!

source:
[https://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/nopython3.html](https://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/nopython3.html)

~~~
geofft
It was definitely not interpreted as a joke by the target audience (people who
are new to programming, let alone to the idea of Turing-completeness) - e.g.,
the third Google result for 'zed shaw turing' is a Reddit thread containing
this comment:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/shittyprogramming/comments/5ejbr9/p...](https://www.reddit.com/r/shittyprogramming/comments/5ejbr9/proof_that_python_3_is_not_turing_complete/dacxlhn/)

So, I don't know if he was serious and then later edited that page to say it
was a joke, or if he meant it as a joke and intended to misteach beginners, or
if he meant it as a joke and did not realize he was misteaching beginners, but
in all three of those cases, I don't see why he's a person worth listening to,
_especially_ on the subject of training programmers.

------
jaclaz
A side note/question.

How did they (both the school/bootcamp and the General Attorney) verify the
data?

I mean, I go to the bootcamp and give them US$ 15,000 for the course (whether
this is a fair amount or not is a distinct matter).

I learn something, get a diploma/certificate whatever and that's it,
reciprocal obligation are fulfilled, it's not like we became friends or
something like that.

I then find a job in the field.

Why would I:

1) tell them that I found a job in the field (or outside the field for what it
matters)?

2) tell them how much I make on that job?

------
KeepItWeird
How is this an example of how the private industry needs to take over on
education? This is the opposite. Proof that you can't let commercial interests
override public interests.

------
EGreg
Online schools like Treehouse don't have to worry about local regulations, or
pay for a building.

Why hasn't capitalism made flipping the classroom a reality?

------
justanman
I'd like to see standardized employment stats from traditional universities.

------
weatherlight
The Dean's letter to the students after the recent settlement

Hi Joseph,

On Friday the New York Attorney General announced a settlement with Flatiron
School. In the press release, they discussed our licensure and our student
outcomes. Everyone at Flatiron School and our community has felt this deeply
and we wanted to speak to you directly.

Regarding our license - we’ve been working with the NY State licensing agency
for nearly four years. We were licensed in our Brooklyn location. We also sent
in an application for our Manhattan location. It was only when we reached out
about an extension for the Manhattan location a year later that we found out
that the application was never processed. We immediately filed the appropriate
paperwork and have since been licensed by NY State.

The second issue was about our student outcomes. We present data on our
website in aggregate, such as our 98.5% employment rate for graduates. The
Attorney General felt a link labeled “Download our Outcomes Report” next to
“98.5% employment rate” taking you to the full breakdown of jobs was not
“Clear and Conspicuous”. We understand that in our efforts to be transparent,
we exposed ourselves to a new level of scrutiny and we will live up to that in
the future. Here’s an example from our settlement:

The NYAG finds that Flatiron’s claim that 98.5% of its graduates are employed
in the software engineering field within 180 days of graduating, does not
clearly and conspicuously disclose that “employed” includes not only full time
salaried positions, but also paid apprentices, contract employees and self-
employed/freelance employees. This information was available by clicking on
the “Download Our Outcomes Report” link and entering an email address in order
to download a multi-page report that contains graduation and employment rate
information. The NYAG finds that labeling the link “Download Our Outcomes
Report” did not sufficiently convey that it contains information relevant to
the employment calculation.

We're proud of all of you and have shared your success on our website to
inspire others. Ultimately, we know that the concerns of our students and
community are about the truth of our outcome data. We want to restate,
unequivocally, that our reports are accurate and have not been falsified. In
fact, the Attorney General explicitly agreed that we can continue using all of
our historical reports and you can find them on our website today.

That’s really it. We understand how it’s been easy for these important details
to become lost in the public discussion around this settlement. We’re most
sorry for the way this affects our community of students and alumni. Learning
to code is hard enough and thinking of the distraction this causes breaks our
hearts.

I encourage any alumni reading this to focus on what matters - themselves,
their code, their work, and their community. We are going to do everything in
our power to make sure this does not blemish your journey. We hope you still
feel proud that your journey began at Flatiron School, we still feel it a
privilege to have been part of your lives. We will continue teaching
passionate people how to code and helping them find the jobs they love. We are
excited about the future of the school.

If you have any questions about this, please do reach out. We always love to
hear from our alumni.

Learn, Love, Code // <3

Avi Flombaum and Adam Enbar

------
inusan
Extemely shady leadership team that treats staff poorly because they think
they know it all. Plus they hire a lot of the grass to work on their internal
product so it further skews the job claim.

------
jli75
Now it's acquired by WeWork.

------
s73ver_
It upsets me that they didn't finger the person ultimately responsible for
this, and single them out.

------
Rbatista
its getting real

~~~
notyourday
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UFc1pr2yUU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UFc1pr2yUU)

------
adamzerner
Back in 2014, coding bootcamps were advertising rates in the 90s. See
[https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-job-placement-rates-at-
va...](https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-job-placement-rates-at-various-
coding-bootcamps). From that post, this is what the director of admissions at
Fullstack Academy claims are the job placement rates of some popular
bootcamps:

\- Fullstack Academy: 97%

\- Hack Reactor: 99%

\- App Academy: 98%

\- Dev Bootcamp: 90%

\- Flatiron School: 98%

(He edited his post to take this down literally as I write my comment. Ie.
after this article exploded on Hacker News. See the logs for proof:
[https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-job-placement-rates-at-
va...](https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-job-placement-rates-at-various-
coding-bootcamps/answer/Huntly-Mayo-Malasky/log). Here is his original post:
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/jsek2oum4lioeja/Screen%20Shot%2020...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/jsek2oum4lioeja/Screen%20Shot%202017-10-17%20at%2010.55.29%20AM.png?dl=0))

The Quora post doesn't mention it, but I assume these numbers refer to job
placement rate within three months. I attended Fullstack Academy back in 2014
and recall being told these numbers by Fullstack, and by all of those other
bootcamps (I applied to them too). And I recall all of them referring to job
placement rate within three months.

I believe there is plenty of evidence that all of this is true. There are
plenty of press articles, such as [http://www.businessinsider.com/4-traits-
that-make-developers...](http://www.businessinsider.com/4-traits-that-make-
developers-desirable-by-employers-2015-7) corroborating it. And there are
thousands of applicants and students who probably remember being told about
job placement rates in the upper 90s.

Now take a look at the data from CIRR. Below I list the percentage of
graduates who are hired as full time employees within 90 days of graduating:

\- Fullstack Academy (New York City): 30.4%

\- Hack Reactor (New York): 43.6%

See for yourself: [https://cirr.org/data](https://cirr.org/data).

I can only conclude that back when we were all told that the numbers were in
the upper 90s, we were either lied to, or intentionally mislead. Credit to
them for pushing for transparency with CIRR, but shame on them for
lying/intentionally misleading us all for a very, very long time.

~~~
WindyCityBrew
There's other ways of manipulating the numbers too. I attended App Academy,
but as an "auditing student" meaning I paid the same price and did the same
work but, according to the information, I might not get a pair to program with
if the classroom count was odd.

However, I'd bet a shiny nickel that auditing students aren't part of their
advertised statistics. Or at least auditing students that don't make the
numbers better. I "graduated" just fine and found a job at above their salary
avg, so who knows if I'm part of their numbers or not.

Edit to add: Not trying to say anything bad about AA here, I really enjoyed
the program and it has been money well spent. I just wanted to chime in on the
topic of "9X% of students make 6 figures after graduation"

~~~
zgavin1
I too will chime in! I attended App Academy as well, as a fulltime student in
New York a couple years ago. Between my cohort, the cohort before and the
cohort after, I would say it was something like 80% of people were placed in
fulltime jobs by three months. I was one of the last to be employed (we
graduated in late Feb, I was finally working by the end of June). A few people
had jobs before the whole 12 weeks were up. I can't say for sure about salary,
but it wasn't drastically lower than advertised.

~~~
adamzerner
80% sounds really high. Other bootcamps seem to be in the 30-40% range within
3 months.

Also, I find it suspicious that App Academy seemingly isn't taking part in
CIRR.

