Over the last decade, scores of programs have promised coding skills for a new economy. Many of their graduates succeed. And many don't, left on the hook for some of the same high costs as traditional higher education.
Lambda coding school accused of deceiving students out of thousands of dollars
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Lambda School, a coding academy, is the target of an arbitration claim in S.F. that lawyers say bilked students of tens of thousands of dollars with deceptive payment practices.Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
Close to two years ago, Linh Nguyen found what she thought was her ticket to a job in tech when she enrolled in Lambda School, a San Francisco for-profit coding academy which promises students only pay tuition after they get a good-paying job.
Now she has that tech job and an ample salary to match, but with no thanks to Lambda, which allegedly lied about its job placement rates while evading state regulators and provided courses that essentially asked students to teach themselves, according to a legal complaint filed in San Francisco on Thursday.
Three students sue coding bootcamp Lambda School alleging false advertising and financial shenanigans
Lambda School has attracted a lot of attention, and raised some $130 million in venture funding from an impressive list of investors, for its novel approach to coding education: offering six-month virtual computer science courses for $30,000, with the option of paying for the courses in installments based on a sliding scale that only kicks in after you land a job that makes at least $50,000.
But it turns out that the startup is attracting a lot of controversy, too. In the latest development, three students have filed lawsuits against the company in California, claiming misleading financial and educational practices.