2017 End of Year News Roundup + Podcast

In our End of Year Podcast, we're rounding up the most interesting news of 2017 and covering all the trends, thought pieces, controversies and more. Many schools are hitting their 5 year anniversaries – a reminder that although there is a lot going on in this industry, it’s still nascent and there is still room for new innovative approaches to the bootcamp model. We’ve chosen the most defining stories, and it was a very eventful year – a couple of big bootcamps closed, a ton of new bootcamps launched, some schools were acquired, and other bootcamps raised money.

Major 2017 Trends

• The major trends in coding schools were: job guarantees, innovative tuition models like Income Sharing Agreements, and internal regulation around student outcomes reporting. 
• In 2018, we predict that federal regulation over bootcamps will be sparse, but state and internal regulation over student outcomes and tuition offers will continue to evolve; more schools will invest in corporate training; and we'll continue to see consolidation amongst bootcamps. 
• As we hit 5 years in the bootcamp industry, we’ve seen a bit of a shakeout, but overall, the industry continues to grow and graduates continue to report really strong outcomes.
• Bootcamps remained diverse and employers started to take note. With the diversity of thought and backgrounds of students, and we continue to see more veterans retraining in tech.
• We also saw several major fundraises: Trilogy Education raised $30 million, Andela raised $40 million, Galvanize raised $7 million, MissionU raised $8.5 million, Holberton School raised $2.3 million, and Kenzie Academy raised $1.6 million.

And on Course Report...

• We added 94 new schools to our directory.
• We gave away over $7,000 in exclusive Course Report scholarships.
• We launched our new Get Matched tool and matched over 15,000 of our readers with coding bootcamps.
• We published 183 new articles on our blog.
  • Most read article in 2017: Front End Development vs Back End Development
  • Most popular 2017 article: React Native vs iOS/Android

January

• TechRepublic reporter Alison DeNisco Rayome explored if coding bootcamp grads can compete with CS grads for jobs and found that bootcamp grads were better at web programming & writing clean modular code, but worse at algorithms & understanding how computers work.
• On the Course Report blog, Imogen looked at free and paid ways you can get ahead and how to learn to code before bootcamp.

February

• Coding was dubbed “The Next Big Blue Collar Job” by Wired magazine and WSJ looked at how coding bootcamps can retrain workers in Middle America for the 21st century
• On the Course Report blog, Lauren published an Ultimate Guide to Mobile Development Bootcamps highlighting the need for professionals with mobile development expertise and which mobile development bootcamps are outfitting students with the necessary skills to succeed.

March

• Tech Crunch, Wall St Journal, Chicago Tribune all covered the launch of Council on Integrity in Results Reporting (CIRR), a coalition of schools that have announced their commitment to publish student graduation and job placement data in a single, standardized framework.
• On the Course Report Blog, Liz published a piece explaining the ins and outs of CIRR: CIRR: Standardized Job Placement Data from Coding Bootcamps.
• Doug Belkin of the Wall Street Journal covered a handful of bootcamps that are building tuition-back guarantees into their business models, including Flatiron School and Holberton School, and since then, several other schools have added job guarantees.

April

• R&B artist and producer Ne-Yo has invested in Holberton School as part of Holberton's $2.3 million fundraising round (via TechCrunch). Holberton is a school in San Francisco where students learn together through building projects.
• On the Course Report blog, Lauren wrote a piece about learning after bootcamp, and covered some ways that bootcamp graduates can keep learning and growing in their first jobs like going to conferences and hackathons.

May

• Indeed.com released a report showing that 80% of US tech hiring managers and recruiters say they have hired a coding bootcamp graduate for a tech role, and 99.8% said they would do so again.
• On the Course Report blog, we did a video interview with VP of Career Services, Rebekah Rombom, about how successful Flatiron School coding bootcamp graduates are two years after graduating.

June

• Trilogy Education raised $30 million in series A funding led by Highland Capital Partners, with Rethink Education and City Light Capital. Trilogy runs 20 bootcamps in collaboration with universities such as the University of Texas and Berkeley.
• The Chronicle of Higher Education published an article about a new model for quality assurance standards led by Entangled Solutions, an alternative to CIRR. Here is the full framework.
• On the Course Report blog, we published a Guide to Coding Bootcamps with Job Guarantees with a list of the schools that offer guarantees and several things to watch out for when you see a “job guarantee” advertised.

July

• Two established bootcamps with campuses around the US, Dev Bootcamp and The Iron Yard, announced in July that they would both be closing in 2017.
  • On July 12th, Dev Bootcamp President Tarlin Ray emailed students, and alumni to say that after 5 years the bootcamp was going to cease operations in December 2017.
  • On July 20th, The Iron Yard announced that their last cohort would finish in summer 2017. That means they ceased operations at all 15 campuses around the US.
  • Since Dev Bootcamp closed, we put together a list of 14 Alternatives to Dev Bootcamp on the Course Report blog; these are schools which could provide similar or equivalent education in the locations where Dev Bootcamp operated.
• We published the annual 2017 Course Report Market Growth Report. Highlights include:
  • The coding bootcamp market has grown 10.5x since 2012 when the first bootcamps launched.
  • There will be an estimated 22,949 bootcamp grads in 2017 compared with 15,077 in 2016.
  • In 2017 there are 95 full-time schools compared with 91 in 2016.
  • Full Stack JavaScript is the most common teaching language.

August

• Politico covered the passing by Congress of a $3 billion expansion of the GI Bill, which aims to give veterans more flexibility to get new skills later in life through higher education and nontraditional education providers like coding bootcamps.
  • WKBN interviewed Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton about how proposed changes to the GI Bill will allow veterans to attend coding bootcamps.
• On the Course Report blog, we learned how to kick imposter syndrome with The Grace Hopper Program Dean of Students, Meg Kelly.

September

• Tech Republic looked at a report showing 80% of US tech hiring managers and recruiters have hired a coding bootcamp graduate, and Forbes talked to a number of employers about why they like to hire from coding bootcamps.
• Galvanize, a coding bootcamp with campuses in Austin, Boulder, Denver, New York, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Seattle laid off 11% of its workforce.
• We noticed a trend of bootcamps offering deferred tuition and income sharing agreements (ISAs), so Imogen put together a Guide to Deferred Tuition & ISAs at Coding Bootcamp, explaining the difference between the two, and which schools offer which payment option.

October

• The Attorney General of New York announced a $375,000 settlement with Flatiron School because they didn’t clearly and conspicuously disclose the full calculations and methodology when they promoted average salary and job placement rate. Also, Flatiron operated online without a license.
• WeWork acquired Flatiron School in an acquisition widely covered by publications like CNN, TechCrunch and more, and The Next Web reporter Matthew Hughes looked at how Flatiron School can now upskill WeWork members.
  • Liz chatted with Flatiron’s COO for a podcast about Building Diversity in Bootcamps and how Flatiron can continue to increase diversity and access to coding education, especially now since they’ve been acquired by WeWork and can tap into a whole new pool of potential students.
• According to Forbes reporter Lauren Gensler, Strayer Education and Capella Education merged in a $1.9 billion deal, to create one of the country’s largest for-profit education companies: Strategic Education Inc. In 2016 Strayer acquired New York Code and Design Academy, and Capella acquired Hackbright Academy and DevMountain coding bootcamps. This company now owns bootcamps in New York, San Francisco, DC, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, and Dallas.
• Course Report published our Top 49 Coding Bootcamps for 2017 including full-time, immersive, in-person web and mobile development bootcamps with transparent student outcomes, multiple campuses, reputable instructors, a commitment to diversity, scholarships or innovative payment plans, and an intentional application process.

November

• New York City released a set of guidelines for coding schools to follow, compiled by the Tech Talent Pipeline, which covers transparency, job assistance, and loan guidance.
• On the Course Report blog, Jeff Casimir from Turing School walked Liz through how an application gets developed; from business requirements, to front end to back end, to data and ops.

December

• Thinkful acquired Viking Code School and the Odin Project.
• Former staff from The Iron Yard have now announced that they’re launching two new bootcamps: Carolina Code School and Momentum.
• CBS looks at why government-funded bootcamp Mined Mines is being sued via a class action lawsuit after students did not get the jobs they were promised.
• On Course Report, we published our 2017 Outcomes and Demographics Report. Highlights include:
  • Coding bootcampers report a $23,724 average salary increase in their first job after graduating. The average post-bootcamp starting salary is $70,698, which is a 51% salary lift.
  • The typical attendee is 30 years old, has 6 years of work experience, has at least a Bachelor's degree, and has never worked as a programmer.
  • 20% of 2017 alumni report using an external lending partner (compared to just 9% before 2015). The most popular lending partners are Climb Credit and Skills Fund.

FURTHER READING

• November 2017 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast
• October 2017 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast
• September 2017 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast

About The Author

Imogen is a writer and content producer who loves writing about technology and education. Her background is in journalism, writing for newspapers and news websites. She grew up in England, Dubai and New Zealand, and now lives in Brooklyn, NY.