February 2022 Coding Bootcamp News

Table of Contents

• A $190.8M ACQUISITION + A £1.65M FUNDRAISE
• PELL GRANTS FOR BOOTCAMPS + THE DEBATE OVER OUTCOMES
• TAKEAWAYS FROM THE GREAT RESIGNATION
• WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT + APPRENTICESHIPS
• DIVERSITY & INCLUSION IN THE BOOTCAMP WORLD
• 14 NEW BOOTCAMPS (AND 4 NEW CAMPUSES) IN FEBRUARY 
• FAVORITE PIECES ON THE BLOG

After months of reporting about federal funding for short-term programs, it looks like the next step has been made to open up Pell grants to training programs like bootcamps. We’re covering the debate among bootcamps about the benefits (and challenges) of publishing alumni job outcomes. Learn more about February’s largest acquisitions and fundraises, news about ageism in tech, and what employers are learning from The Great Resignation. Plus, find out which 14 new bootcamps we added to the Course Report directory this month!

Curious about what happened in January? Check out last month’s episode to hear our January coding bootcamp news roundup!

A $190.8M ACQUISITION + A £1.65M FUNDRAISE

• Cengage Group announced they will acquire Infosec for $190.8M. Infosec is a cybersecurity education company that fuels cybersecurity bootcamps. 
• Prolific North reports that Northcoders received £1.65M from the Department of Education as part of the government’s Lifetime Skills Guarantee and Plan for Jobs. 
• Higher Ed Dive reports that 2U is integrating operations with edX, which they acquired in June of last year for $800 million. 2U and edX have a combined 1,200 corporate clients, and 2U plans to make edX the face of its consumer brand.

PELL GRANTS FOR BOOTCAMPS + THE DEBATE OVER OUTCOMES

• According to the National Skills Coalition and Community College Daily, an amendment to the America COMPETES Act was passed by the House this February now makes it possible for workers to use Pell grants to retrain through short-term programs through the JOBS Act. 
• This is seen as a substantive and political victory for community colleges, but bootcamps could potentially benefit. Although for now, the new Pell eligibility would not apply to for-profit institutions.
• To be eligible for Pell, programs would have to be at least 8 weeks long. Programs would also have to demonstrate a wage increase of 20% for those completing the program, approximately six months after completion.

• Business Insider explored the challenges that some bootcamps like Lambda School and Treehouse have faced, particularly in their leadership teams.
• TechCrunch took a look at job outcomes for bootcamp grads, highlighting an argument from Nucamp’s CEO, Ludo Fourrage, on how sharing outcomes is “too elusive” for applicants. Springboard CEO & co-founder Gautam Tamba weighed in on the matter, saying he thinks the solution to opaque reporting and confused students “needs to start with more transparency, not less.”
• The Brookings Institution did a deep dive into the Social Policy Institute’s research on the positive outcomes of graduates from LaunchCode. These graduates receive an apprenticeship in addition to their bootcamp training. According to the research, students who completed the bootcamp and the apprenticeship had an average annual income of $66K versus those applicants who were not accepted to the program and had an average annual income of $41K.

TAKEAWAYS FROM THE GREAT RESIGNATION

• According to Cengage Group research, 78% of U.S. adults who quit their job recently or were planning to quit have taken online training courses or certificate programs within the past 6 months. Almost all of them said they took these courses to help them get a new job, and 71% said they paid for all or part of these courses themselves. 
• Due to the pandemic-related labor shock, Inc. reports that new research from Harvard indicates employers are now revising their hiring efforts to focus on skills over degrees.
• Protocol interviewed Rebekah Rombom from Flatiron School for tips on how to offer corporate training that employees actually are interested in and complete. 

WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT + APPRENTICESHIPS

• Grand Circus in Detroit announced that they are partnering with Apple to offer introductory iOS app development courses to Michiganders throughout 2022.
• VentureBurn reports that HyperionDev has partnered with University of Cape Town’s Law@Work to offer a coding bootcamp specifically for lawyers. 
• According to The New York Times, Google announced a $100 Million Fund that bets on scaling up programs like Merit America that have proven effective in lifting low-income workers into middle-class jobs and careers.

DIVERSITY & INCLUSION IN THE BOOTCAMP WORLD

• Technical.ly posted about ageism in tech and how people who are making a career change in their 40s and 50s may have to deal with ageism in both the bootcamp world and on the job hunt.
• Springboard announced that they are committing $10M in scholarship funding to their Inclusion Scholarship Program as part of their mission to transform one million lives by 2030. 

14 NEW BOOTCAMPS (AND 4 NEW CAMPUSES) IN FEBRUARY 

• Ironhack is opening a hybrid campus in Tampa, and to celebrate this expansion, they’re offering a few $1,000 scholarships to people who enroll in the first Tampa cohort. 
• Springboard is now offering a 12-week, part-time Tech Sales bootcamp. (Take a look at the curriculum!)
• DeltaV Code School will begin offering a 10-week cybersecurity bootcamp this March.
• Tech Elevator unveiled its first ever part-time bootcamp offering. 

We added 14 new bootcamps to the Course Report directory:

• Utah State University Tech Bootcamps (Operated by Fullstack Academy) 
• University of New Mexico Continuing Education Tech Bootcamps (Operated by Fullstack Academy) 
• Colorado State University Bootcamps (Operated by Fullstack Academy) 
• Berkeley ML/AI Bootcamp (Operated by Emeritus) 
• UMass Global Online Bootcamps (Operated by Springboard) 
• UJ Accelerated
• MIOTI 
• Maven Analytics
• Universidad Europea
• Eyup
• Stateful Academy
• Dented Code Academy
• Kal Academy 
• Product Manager Accelerator

FAVORITE PIECES ON THE BLOG

Jess connected with National Guard member & former law enforcement officer Chad about how he funded his career change using the Veteran Rapid Retraining Assistance Program (VRRAP). VRRAP is available to any vets whose employment was affected by the pandemic who want to reskill and you do not need any GI Bill left to be eligible! VRRAP covers bootcamp tuition and includes a housing/living stipend. Using VRRAP, Chad enrolled at Sabio and is now a remote Software Engineer at Blackburn Labs. 

Liz put together a list of Bootcamps for Women this month. These 8 bootcamps teach only women, women-identifying, and non-binary folx!