bootcamp fraud

Warning: Students duped by bootcamp fraud


New reports reveal disturbing evidence of fraudulent coding, science bootcamps. Is there a way to detect them?

The lure of a month-long bootcamp to teach you the basic skills required of a high-paying job just begging to be filled is so strong that even this humanities-heavy writer considered applying not too long ago. And as I sat there reading the seemingly straight-forward requirements of said bootcamps, never once did it cross my mind that I could be falling into a trap.

Now, multiply that mindset by every job-hungry, ambitious student today, along with well-meaning institutions looking to give their graduates an extra advantage, and you’ve got a problem; specifically, a bootcamp fraud problem.

A Worst Nightmare Scenario

As the STEM rhetoric began to build almost ten years ago, and was then coupled with the Great Recession and Millennial debt crisis, bootcamps aimed at teaching specific high-demand skills from industries desperate for trained employees were offered like magic beans; and, for the most part, seemed to deliver on their promises.

According to switchup —an online resource for tech bootcamps touted by the likes of Wired, TechCrunch, and VentureBeat—a comprehensive 2014 to 2016 survey of bootcamp graduates reported that 80 percent of bootcamp alumni surveyed were satisfied with their education, 63 percent of alumni received a $22,700 salary increase just 6 months after graduation, and 68 percent of bootcamp grads were working in IT within 6 months of graduating.

So far, so good…until it wasn’t just students looking for an opportunity.

From the beginning, some bootcamps had seasoned techies scratching their heads. According to a post written a few years ago by a hacker known simply as “dpg,” there were several reasons why some bootcamp pipelines seemed like a bad idea. “The bootcamp model gives you an ‘intensive’ course good enough so that you’re able to build a [crappy] web app, and then they hopefully place you in a job needing a code monkey. In return, they get a recruiter’s cut when you’re hired. They make money off of people up front and in back (sort of genius on their part, eh?).” dpg goes on to write that this scenario could lead to high employee turnover rate due to burnout or replacement.

Techspiration also wrote a piece in 2015 attempting to bust what it said are the big myths of some tech bootcamps, including learning dense technical skills in just a few short weeks to prepare for a lifelong career in IT.

Despite these posts written by tech professionals with veteran industry knowledge, bootcamps picked up in popularity, with a whole new crop developing recently in an even newer market, data science.

Then, late September last year, a major bootcamp revealed major fraud. According to a report from Inc. magazine, the founder of Devschool, Jim O’Kelly, vanished, taking with him roughly $100,000 in student tuition. After some student-led sleuthing, it turned out that Jim O’Kelly was really Eric James O’Kelly–a man on the Most Wanted List  in Clackamas County, Oregon for charges of assault, menacing and criminal mischief.

Many students part of Devschool do not believe they’ll recoup their money, even after reporting the incident to a variety of authorities, including the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, their respective state attorneys general, the FBI’s Cyber Division, and the tip line of the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office. They have also contacted their respective credit card companies, notes Inc.

(Next page: How to avoid boot camp fraud)

Addressing the Main Problem

“For bootcamp founders, there is almost no barrier to entry when starting up,” writes Inc. “To lure in customers, all that is needed is someone who can teach how to code and is bold enough to promise students a job. This might require a small office if the teaching is to be done in person, but for online-only schools–and there are a handful–all that’s needed is a Slack group and video calling tools.”

Not only can student testimonials be faked, but job placement rates and salaries can also be faked. That’s why, said Jim Deters, CEO and cofounder of Galvanize—an education community for technology—in an interview with eCampus News, the main issue allowing for boot camp fraud is the lack of regulated standards and transparency.

“The specifics about standards—what constitutes an in-field job, for example—are less important than getting everyone to agree to follow them. The real problem now is that, because most everyone is using their own definitions and methods, it’s impossible for consumers to compare one program to another.”

Deters explained that, currently, there’s little incentive for bootcamps to make one standard for everyone, considering there’s no gain in “coming to the table to agree to whatever those standards should be and no person or entity that can enforce it. Individual bootcamps and companies are growing and prospering as things are, so there’s just little reason, from their perspective, to change.”

If Not from the Creators, then…

If more bootcamps follow the path of Devschool, Deters says it’s logical that all accelerated learning programs, not just coding bootcamps, will be subjected to some form of governing to enforce quality, especially if learning programs eventually seek federal funding. Much like for-profits, the Department of Education may supervise and conduct this governance.

But until then, there are specific accelerated learning program and bootcamp characteristics students and institutions should look for when choosing to participate:

1. Whether or not the program’s graduation and job placement rates have been audited by an outside firm. “This shows that a school is making the effort to open their process to review and disclose,” explained Deters. “They should check with state regulating agencies in the states where the schools operate, as well. Every state has some form of required disclosure that’s public, so I’d look for those.”

2. What a bootcamp tells a state agency should match what they’re telling students. “And if a program doesn’t file or has not filed with a state agency, that’s a warning sign,” he noted.

3. Whether or not the school has received a government certification or is working with traditional universities, as these are also safer bets.

4. Whether or not the program has been in existence for a few years. “Ideally, they should also have programs in more than one location. That speaks to stability,” said Deters.

Leading by Example

As a provider of accelerated technology learning programs, Galvanize decided to help lead the way toward a bootcamp fraud-free era by creating the Galvanize Standard: a new commitment toward transparency with the inclusion of an outside audit of the program’s published stats, as well as publication of the audit itself. “It commits us to follow a single standard—the highest requirements set by any state [California]—for all our programs across all our campuses,” emphasized Deters.

 

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