Comment by iomotoko | Hacker News Reader

Comment by iomotoko | Hacker News Reader

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)

If I wanted to spend 10,000 $ on a CS education, I'd put some of it into the Georgia Tech online MS program [1] and still have 3k+ left. Admittedly I do have a Bachelor's degree in (non CS) engineering,so I meet their eligibility criteria.

Burning 10k for a non accredited "CS" education makes no sense. How much Computer Science you can learn in 6 months is another question. If you don't want accreditation,why not work through some CS MOOCS at edx in that time and save the 10k?

I doubt many companies will take 6 months of such "Computer Science bootcamp" seriously.

OTOH I suppose this might be better than paying for a code bootcamp. And many people do pay that much to learn barebones javascript, might as well learn some barebones 'computer science' instead. Why not?

Might be interesting to see how this turns out in a year or so.

[1] From the Georgia Tech online MS FAQ

How much does the degree program cost? Exact cost will depend on how quickly students complete the program. We anticipate that working students will take an average of two courses per term, resulting in a total program cost of about $6,600 over five terms. Students who complete their programs more quickly will pay less; those who take longer will pay more.

I wish they taught you JavaScript but I'm afraid a few of them "directly" teach you react or some library or framework.

I'm sure the online Master's program at Georgia Tech is strong and it's certainly priced much better than an average MS in CS [1], but I think this is an apples-oranges comparison because the audiences are so different. As you mentioned, you have an engineering degree already. The overlap between people who are considering a dev bootcamp program and people that are also considering and are eligible for a Master's in CS must be a very small (or nonexistent) pool.

[1]: It's worth mentioning that one can effectively do a MS in CS at a research school for "free" with a graduate research assistant position that includes a tuition waiver. Some of these are competitive but again the pool of qualified Master's in CS candidates is relatively small to begin with.

Hi, I'm one of your unicorns! Currently attending Fullstack Academy, while I work on my GA Tech application.

I took some math and one CS class in undergrad... have messed around with algorithm study... really hoping I get in. I didn't want to pay $60k for a masters at a place like UChicago.

Where are these free masters you speak of? I don't have a lot of "accredited" classes, just a lot of self study online.

I put free in quotes because the tradeoff is that you do research for the university as part of a graduate research assistantship (GRA). Typically the position comes with a stipend as well and usually requires being a full-time student. The officially term is "tuition remission". You may receive special consideration if you attend the same university for undergrad and grad school.

Here's more info from the school I attended: https://engineering-computer-science.wright.edu/advising-and....

Ask HN: Is Georgia Tech's Online Master in CS Worth It? (1 hour ago)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15018002

I think you're making a big assumption that you'll be accepted - anecdotally I've heard that they turn away many people who meet their basic acceptance criteria unless those people have a large amount of industry experience. As a result, it's pretty apples to oranges - if you can get into GT's OMSCS you don't need Lambda School, because you're already in the field.

It's not a great deal outside of the US, that's largely because our income share agreement relies on US infrastructure and is not internationalized. So you can still attend in the U.K., but unfortunately it's under different (probably worse) terms.

Also, everything we do is live and interactive, so it's not a matter of just "creating learning resources." It's a lot of one on one time with instructors.

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.

I am quite aware that the situation might be different, I still consider most of my points valid for the US though, for example regarding quality of education provided + that the business seems a little bit "shady" to me.

btw: a degree from the University of London (via distance learning, can be done from many parts of the world) is about ~5000£ (~6482$) - again we are talking about flexible payment + great study resources (6 semester's worth) + a full bachelor's degree!

This however seems (to me) w/ all due respect like a "get rich quick" scheme that won't work for 99% of people. And the other 1% would have probably made it some other way and are possibly paying 30k$ for it (and I want to stress again: 30k$ for a 6 month crash course with _no_ degree in the end)

I see your perspective but also from a US perspective the cost is much lower than a Bachelor's in CS (just to be clear I'm not claiming this is equivalent to a BS). So it is faster, cheaper, and with better repayment terms than one can get from a US university.

Now, a problem dev bootcamp type programs have is lack of accreditation (can't call themselves universities) and lack of curriculum standardization across code schools. In the US, engineering and CS universities have ABET accreditation to solve this problem which sets the model / baseline curriculum for what a BS in CS must cover.

Do the European schools have some sort of curriculum standardization for CS? The larger question I am wondering is if an international CS degree carries the same weight as a domestic one in the US.

Or is USA the outlier? I paid $100 a year here in Norway, e.g. nothing.

Eg = for example

Ie = id est = that is

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.

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...)

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.

In Sweden 10K would cover most of your living expenses for a year. Oh, you're talking about the cost of education? Well that part is free ;)

The original example was 10k for a "private university via distance learning", which I assume won't be free in Sweden either. FWIW, I paid 250 euros per semester in Germany, most of which was for the public transport ticket.

Private universities don't exist in Sweden, at least none that offer CS degrees. There are a few MBAs for which one has to pay the full price but they are usually only attended by professionals and charged to their employer.

Same in Poland - all of the best universities in the country are public universities and are free for everyone. Private ones have a reputation for being very very poor and something people sign up for just to get the paper saying they have "a degree". Even then, they cost something like $300/semester so if you really need that paper it's not that expensive.

In Australia, bachelors degrees are $15k to $30k, and you don't pay until you have a job. And with the benefits rules, sometimes you can receive more in benefits to enable you to study than the student debt you'll incur.

I'm a little surprised US undergraduate tuition manages to stay that high, as it seems it would often be cheaper to migrate to Europe or Australia for the purposes of study (and Australia and Europe are quite receptive to that... education is Australia's third biggest export...)

> and you don't pay until you have a job

Some US student loans work this way with income-based repayment. However there are plenty of gotchas: It only applies to federal loans. Many people with large amounts of school loans > $15k-20k/year for 4-5 years can't actually get this much in federal loans, and also only a subset of what they can get has subsidized interest. I'm not sure whether loan interest continues to accrue normally in the period where payments are reduced. I think this depends on the type of federal loan and there are quite a few. Some are completely unsubsidized (i.e., accrue interest while in school).

the united states is the outlier here

You're right about this and it took a few international responses to remind me of how messed up college is in the US. It's easy to forget that some countries have it much better off than the norm here.

What's more is the example I used for the US is on the low end.

The average annual tuition (with room and board) from the US Department of Education is $16k public and $42k private [1].

> For the 2014–15 academic year, average annual current dollar prices for undergraduate tuition, fees, room, and board were estimated to be $16,188 at public institutions, $41,970 at private nonprofit institutions, and $23,372 at private for-profit institutions.

What's more jarring is that these numbers are a bit cooked to blend 4-year and 2-year schools whereas most students don't consider community colleges (which grants Associate's degrees vs Bachelor's… I'm not sure if every country has something similar).

The actual average annual numbers in cureent dollars (as of 2014-2015) are $18,632 for 4-year public and $37,990 for 4-year private. For some reason the private numbers blend nonprofit and for-profit private schools whereas a figure excluding for-profit would probably be more accurate.

[1]: https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=76

It's funny that nonprofits would charge almost twice as much as for-profits.

Do you know if any German universities offer Bachelor's in Software Engineering, or if they are comparable to US degrees, IE 4 years?

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