A non-profit that's really for-profit

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IXWs11

New

IXWs11
Oct 13, 2021 19 Comments

I don't know how this place is still operating. It's pretty clear they are exploiting the poor and POC. They're charging up to 70k for a coding bootcamp--that's 4x as much as more than well-known schools. They claim it's to pay for the education plus career support, but the math doesn't make sense.

If your students have a combination of student debt from going to college and are financially supporting 2 or more dependents (children or other relatives), how can those students afford to pay 5, 10, or 15% of their GROSS income? They can't.

The whole income share payment really gives off payday loans vibes. This place also has the vibe of a pyramid scheme or MLM when they bribe students with social media promotion in exchange for referring more students to them. There are also cult vibes with this whole "trust the process" mantra--your process, such as advising students to list this under work experience instead of education on resumes, would make our students unemployable.

It's a nonprofit but they have investors (their words). What happened to funding with grants and donations? They've had trouble paying the investors back because: 1) they didn't do a good job of training students, so those students don't get jobs; 2) students who did get jobs don't pay because they cite poverty (see the student loans mentioned earlier); and 3) other students who have jobs refuse to pay because the program quality wasn't equal and cite possible illegal activity done by the nonprofit.

On the possible illegal activity: this place is operating a school without a license. They are effectively violating students' rights by not explaining how to file grievances with the state education department, not having licensed teachers or lesson plans approved by the education dept., only having one payment option for tuition (the income share agreement), and not marketing the program truthfully.

Before this place was upfront about the investors, they actually said the student payments were paying it forward to funding spots for future students. They then tried to gaslight everyone about this "pay it forward" period.

And this is all by a non-profit. I could go on, but we're getting to Anna Karenina lengths here. This place is clearly for-profit. There are multiple staff making over 100k. I don't know how they justify that and say they rely so much on volunteers from the tech community to teach and mentor the students.

Don't give them the benefit of the doubt. They have no good intentions. They are operating a non-profit because they want glory and want to look like benevolent people, not because they truly want to help the poor and POC break into tech and out of poverty.

Don't give them your money. Don't give them your time. Don't sign up for their program.

Addendum:
It's called Pursuit.

#nonprofit #education #tech

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