It's awesome to hear that there are more scrupulous alternatives. You say everyone is working in industry - if in a %, you mean to say like 100% of those who graduated with you work(ed) in tech afterwards, right?
I don't know how things are lately but given sentiment I hear about hiring from bootcamps, I imagine they haven't been able to hold up the high numbers that they had in their first few years. Would love to hear otherwise though. I still think the program is expensive for what it is, but I don't regret it at all.
My only regret was that I chose between changing careers and putting all my money in crypto at the time...back when Bitcoin was still in double digits. If I'd chosen differently I would be rich beyond my wildest dreams.
The bootcamp's selection process is basically picking winners. I was nearly unique among my cohort for my background. It was overwhelmingly ivy grads and silver spoon kids.
They're selecting for people that can afford to move to one of the most expensive cities in the world without working for 6 months. I managed it only by saving enough to pay my rent ahead of time and living off of credit cards for the rest of my spending. I ate a lot of dollar pizza and 6/$1 dumplings that year.
I'm exactly the person that would live cheaply and work on open source full time if I could afford to.
I'll be kicking myself for life for that, but I also have to remind myself that if I had held onto those worthless coins worth fractions of a penny, I almost certainly would have cashed out well before they were at their peak value, and spent them on a pizza or some darknet weed or something else dumb. This at least helps me cope with knowing what could have been...