Three Students Sue Lambda School Alleging False Advertising (techcrunch.com) 22
Lambda School -- incubated at Y Combinator -- raised $130 million in venture funding from several investors including Google Ventures. Its original business model involved six-month virtual computer science courses for $30,000, remembers TechCrunch, "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 this week three former students "filed lawsuits against the company in California, claiming misleading financial and educational practices." The suits — which are being brought by the nonprofit National Student Legal Defense Network on behalf of Linh Nguyen, Heather Nye and Jonathan Stickrod — go back to a period of between 2018 and 2020, and they focus on four basic claims.
First, that Lambda School falsified and misrepresented job placement rates. Second, that Lambda School misrepresented the true nature of its financial interest in student success (specifically, there are question marks over how Lambda handles its Income-Share Agreement contracts and whether it benefits from those). Third, that it misrepresented and concealed a regulatory dispute in California that required the school to cease operations. And fourth, that it enrolled and provided educational services and signed Income-Share Agreement contracts in violation of that order...
Some of the issues that are raised in the lawsuits have also been resolved since then. For example, the prominent display of over 80% of students finding jobs can no longer be found on the Lambda site, and in California you no longer get an Income-Share Agreement but a retail installment contract (similar but different). But as is the way of litigation, lawsuits based on past issues from people who were impacted by them when they were still active, are, in many ways, the next logical, unsurprising step.
But this week three former students "filed lawsuits against the company in California, claiming misleading financial and educational practices." The suits — which are being brought by the nonprofit National Student Legal Defense Network on behalf of Linh Nguyen, Heather Nye and Jonathan Stickrod — go back to a period of between 2018 and 2020, and they focus on four basic claims.
First, that Lambda School falsified and misrepresented job placement rates. Second, that Lambda School misrepresented the true nature of its financial interest in student success (specifically, there are question marks over how Lambda handles its Income-Share Agreement contracts and whether it benefits from those). Third, that it misrepresented and concealed a regulatory dispute in California that required the school to cease operations. And fourth, that it enrolled and provided educational services and signed Income-Share Agreement contracts in violation of that order...
Some of the issues that are raised in the lawsuits have also been resolved since then. For example, the prominent display of over 80% of students finding jobs can no longer be found on the Lambda site, and in California you no longer get an Income-Share Agreement but a retail installment contract (similar but different). But as is the way of litigation, lawsuits based on past issues from people who were impacted by them when they were still active, are, in many ways, the next logical, unsurprising step.
"Lambda" school? (Score:2)
Just the name tells you it's a BS school. Serious students enroll at University of Phoenix. Duh...
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Uh, heh, I think you meant to say My Computer Career dot com.
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That whole thing about job placement has been around for a long time. I remember when I attended DeVry briefly all the seasoned students were quick to inform me that their "95%" placement rate actually was a lot lower because they would hire students who had just graduated but couldn't find jobs to be field reps for the school, so they were technically working "in their field".
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Phoenix is an actual place, why would the name tell you anything?
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uh what (Score:1)
"But as is the way of litigation, lawsuits based on past issues from people who were impacted by them when they were still active, are, in many ways, the next logical, unsurprising step."
The "next logical, unsurprising step"? Restitution or "making whole" is the fucking primary purpose of a civil suit. What martian imbecile wrote this?
"Yes, yes, we stole from you, but we stopped doing it after that so your lawsuit is frivolous!"
It's a lamb to da slaughter (Score:2)
Gimme your money
It's amazing to me that there seems to be endless money and resources for stupidities, but suggest that a leisure society with UBI is feasible and suddenly the human race is at Stone Age subsistence levels -- my god, everyone needs to work!
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Well, they, like many other such "alternative" schools, cater to the students that can less with too much money - or not enough common sense. The students that can attend real schools that deliver real degrees that are worth something on the marketplace.
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So you suggest they study "Critical Theory"? Which is the form of Marxism interpreted by the School of philosophy and forms much of the philosophical bases for post-modern feminism and their kissing cousin, BLM? There is a PhD program at UC Berkeley, Brown and Princeton, so it's not an isolated moral Marxist sinkhole in our modern colleges. When you hear college age students today proclaiming the evils of capitalism, this is what they usually base their claims. Much like their belief that "there is no such
A fool and their money are easily parted (Score:4)
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The additional shame is that I'd bet they could have gotten equal or better education at udemy or similar outfits for under $100.
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These school scams (Score:3)
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If someone is illogical enough to not see this is a sham, then I don’t see a bright career for them in computer science where you have to be able to use logic to code decision flows. This is what trumpeting that “everyone can code” mantra leads to. Yeah, everyone can code to some degree, that’s true. However, everyone can also cook, but that doesn’t make everyone a chef. Everyone can but a bandaid on a scrape, but that doesn’t make everyone a doctor. Everyone can dribble
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If someone is illogical enough to not see this is a sham, then I don't see a bright career for them in computer science where you have to be able to use logic to code decision flows.
This seems be missed on a lot of comments. This only works on stupid people, and they were never going to be successful anyway. There is no loss here.
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bootcamps (Score:1)
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