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2018 End of Year Coding Bootcamp Podcast

Imogen Crispe

Written By Imogen Crispe

Last updated on December 27, 2018

Course Report strives to create the most trust-worthy content about coding bootcamps. Read more about Course Report’s Editorial Policy and How We Make Money.

As we near the end of 2018, we're rewinding and reflecting on the most interesting and impactful coding bootcamp news of the year. Come with us as we look at trends, digest thought pieces, break down the ~$175 million in new funding, and more. We’ll also look at our predictions for 2019 and our hopes for the future of coding bootcamps!

2018: Course Report in Numbers

  • We added 89 new schools to our directory
  • You (our readers) applied for 789 scholarships on Course Report and we gave away over $80,000 in exclusive Course Report Scholarships!
  • We matched 22,000 readers with coding bootcamps via our matching tool
  • We published ~170 new articles on our blog, 15 podcasts (including this one), and 15 YouTube videos!
  • Imogen’s favorite pieces to work on were from our new video series where we asked real graduates from General Assembly, Hack Reactor, New York Code + Design Academy, Flatiron School, and Codesmith to answer a simple question: “Is coding bootcamp worth it?”
  • Liz’s favorite pieces to work on were our 2018 industry reports: our 2018 Market Sizing Report found continued growth both in in-person and online bootcamps as well as corporate training partnerships with bootcamps; and our 2018 Alumni Outcomes & Demographics Report.
  • Income Sharing Agreements (ISAs): 13 schools (and counting) now offer ISAs and 8% of graduates reported using an ISA to cover their tuition.
  • Consolidation: Several schools were acquired – WeWork and Adecco made the largest purchases of the year.
  • Corporate Training: As we predicted last year, many bootcamps are now partnering with companies to provide training to their existing employees.
  • University + Bootcamp partnerships: Trilogy Education is the most prolific of these companines, but other partnerships – like Yale + Flatiron School and Make School + Dominican College – made news this year.

January: $10M for Thinkful

 

February: All About Income Sharing Agreements

March: Diversity Shakeout

April: General Assembly Acquired for $413M

  • Thinkful acquired another online bootcamp, Bloc, which was arguably their largest competitor. This was covered by EdSurge and ELearningInside. Financial details were not disclosed for this acquisition, but Thinkful said Bloc was not actually profitable when the deal was finalized. This was the third acquisition Thinkful had made since November 2017 when it acquired The Viking School and the Odin Project.
  • EdSurge and TechCrunch reported that Holberton School raised $8.2 Million in funding to expand it’s San Francisco-based coding school. Series A Investors included daphni, Trinity Ventures, and Omidyar Network. Remember that Holberton also offers ISAs. Since that fundraise, Holberton announced they are opening new campuses in New Haven, Connecticut, and Bogota and Medellin in Colombia. Holberton also received celebrity endorsements from Ne-Yo and Priyanka Chopra who both invested in the school.
  • General Assembly was acquired for $413 million by Adecco, the world’s largest recruitment and staffing firm, based in Zurich, Switzerland. Forbes interviewed CEO Jake Schwartz about the deal. Shirin Ghaffary of ReCode looked at how important corporate training was for General Assembly in their success and sale.
  • CNBC’s Jim Cramer looked at how Home Depot is hiring 1000 technical professionals as part of an $11 billion strategic investment plan to protect its lead over Amazon, and how they also train existing employees in 12-week tech bootcamps.

May: Facebook Comes to Town

June: $30M for Trilogy Education

July: Hack Reactor joins Galvanize

August: College Degrees Not Required

September: Unpacking Diversity in Tech

  • An article in the Wall Street Journal looks at how the hiring of women in tech has only grown 1% since 2017, with women represented in 24% of technical roles. The article talks to a number of company leaders about what needs to be done to increase workplace diversity.
  • CIO Dive published an update on Woz U. One year in, Woz U says adult education is their largest focus right now, and most students are 25 to 35 year olds, with almost two-thirds holding a degree and looking for a second career. In October 2018, WozU got some negative press from CBS News about student concerns with the quality of the curriculum and materials, and about pressuring sales tactics. In December 2018 a state oversight board dismissed the complaint against WozU.
  • Slack announced that they would be partnering with Hack Reactor to offer apprenticeships to formerly incarcerated people. The Atlantic reports the apprenticeship is split into three parts over a year: four months at Hack Reactor coding bootcamp, four months of training, and then four months on the job at Slack, after which Slack may hire an apprentice, or help them get a job at another tech company.

October: Universities + Coding Bootcamps Partner

November: Flatiron Expands

December: Yale + Harvard + Coding Bootcamps

2018 Regulatory News

  • We did see the state of NY push back against ISAs, so a couple of schools (like App Academy) have switched to Deferred Tuition.
  • The Forever GI Bill was signed in 2017, and we started seeing the effects in 2018, with more coding bootcamps able to accept GI Bill funding.
  • In early 2018, a bill called the Prosper Act was approved by the House Education Committee and was on track for a vote in the House of Representatives. That hasn’t yet been voted upon; it received push back from universities and veterans groups. The Prosper Act would permit noninstitutional education providers like bootcamps to execute and teach 100 percent of a college’s program.
  • The New Hampshire Business Review reports that U.S. Representative Annie Kuster has re-introduced The Coding Technology Improvement Act, legislation which would allow coding technology programs to receive funding through the department of education and apply for federal education grants. That also hasn’t passed.
  • CIRR is still going strong – internally, bootcamps are still trying to regulate themselves – over 15 schools are members now.

Predictions for 2019

  • The shakeout continues – we’ll see more consolidation in 2019. Overall, the industry continues to grow and graduates continue to report really strong outcomes.
  • We’ll see more schools accept the GI Bill and more veterans start to take advantage of coding bootcamps to transition into civilian careers.
  • More schools will start offering ISAs and Deferred Tuition; plus traditional lenders like SkillsFund & Climb will continue to become more popular.
  • While many schools are putting effort into their B2B/corporate training arms, we hope that those partnerships will take on novel forms (and not just become corporate training companies).

 

FURTHER READING

About The Author

Imogen Crispe

Imogen Crispe

Imogen is a writer and content producer who loves exploring technology and education in her work. Her strong background in journalism, writing for newspapers and news websites, makes her a contributor with professionalism and integrity.

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