"But the coding boot-camp field now faces a sobering moment, as two large schools have announced plans to shut down this year — despite backing by major for-profit education companies, Kaplan and the Apollo Education Group, the parent of the University of Phoenix."
Not sure "despite" is the right phrasing here. I'm a DBC grad from about three years ago, and I know DBC had various issues, but I do suspect that there was pressure from Kaplan to expand rapidly, crank prices, and decrease the quality of the education (because that's how Kaplan made their money everywhere else they've been profitable). Kaplan bought them right before my cohort started, and there was serious concern even then that it was a bad omen. I think a lot of startups in general would do well with less pressure for rapid growth, and I suspect that the bootcamp market is much the same.
I quit the Iron Yard right after Apollo bought them/imvested in them. I have to say, the situation was similar. Reminds me of DHH's semi regular rants about the pitfalls of selling your business... It almost always is a bad move for the product, and is often regretted by the founders, despite a large windfall.
Nailed it, did an online course with Kaplan a few years back (Diploma) and was pretty chafed by the experience. The content was dated, the "teaching methods" non-existent, with pretty ridiculous qualification criteria.
Thank you! I remember when in High School, everyone was worried about standardized tests, Kaplan and Princeton Review were considered horrible for SAT/ACT prep. Most of the top students reported that local prep classes were much better, despite having several standardized locations throughout each city (Testmasters for Houston, KD for Dallas).
It's not surprising that Kaplan, a company that relies on services that are supposed to improve performance but not actually teach, would suck at teaching skills. I think the debate should expand from just coding schools vs uni to comparing coding schools.
Not sure "despite" is the right phrasing here. I'm a DBC grad from about three years ago, and I know DBC had various issues, but I do suspect that there was pressure from Kaplan to expand rapidly, crank prices, and decrease the quality of the education (because that's how Kaplan made their money everywhere else they've been profitable). Kaplan bought them right before my cohort started, and there was serious concern even then that it was a bad omen. I think a lot of startups in general would do well with less pressure for rapid growth, and I suspect that the bootcamp market is much the same.