Selecting A Coding Bootcamp That Is Approved By The State of CA Has Many Benefits!
When a student decides that a future in software engineering is in their plans many begin researching coding bootcamps via a couple of the popular review sites like CourseReport and SwitchUp. Although these sites have many reviews on over 200 coding bootcamps throughout the world, visiting those two sites should not be the end of one’s research.
Let me explain why…
I would venture to guess that approximately 80–95% of the content on CourseReport is actually “Paid Sponsorship Content”. A coding bootcamp will pay Course Report anywhere between $500 — $5000 / month to be featured on the site via various “informational articles”. These articles feature the bootcamp’s founder, a staff member or an alum, and they discuss some type of tech topic. The reader, however, has no clue that the article is basically a paid advertisement by the coding bootcamp, because the owners and operators of Course Report & SwitchUp fail to disclose to their readers that you must “Pay to Play” as in you have to compensate Course Report & SwitchUp in order to be featured on their site. One of these sites, Course Report actually is partially owned by a coding bootcamp, General Assembly.
So, what is a potential coding bootcamp student to do in order to discover additional useful information about a school they are interested in?
If you live in the State of CA, I highly recommend that you visit The Bureau for Private Post Secondary Education, or BPPE, as it is referred by industry professionals. This is a State of CA-run pubic agency that is tasked with protecting students that want to attend private-post-secondary schools.
How do you search for school information on the BPPE site? You visit their website: https://app.dca.ca.gov/bppe/default.asp and search by school name or city it is located in:
Let’s say you want to search for a Sabio and you know we are located in Culver City, you enter that name and you get this search result:
Sabio Enterprises, Inc., the “official” Sabio name appears and you see we are approved to operate in Los Angeles.
This gives you a great idea that we actually do in fact have the legal authority to run a coding bootcamp in Los Angeles.
Let’s search for another coding bootcamp that recently secured venture capital funding: Lambda Inc. As of March 14, 2019 you can see that there is no license on file for Lambda Inc.
So what would happen if a school fails to secure a license? Are there any implications?
A school in Los Angeles that failed to secure a license like Lambda has failed to do, is Codesmith. They began to operate back in 2014; however, as of Jan 2019, Codesmith had failed to secure a license to operate a private-postsecondary school and was fined $100,000 by the State of CA.
The fine by the State of CA has additional consequences for those that fail to pay fines and secure approval. They could walk into the facility and close it down and could leave students in the lurch. Many students that enrolled in “The Art Institute” recently learned that their school abruptly closed after the feds decided to pull their Title IV approval.
It is important to note that other CA Full Time Coding Bootcamps have been forced to close. Code District, which offered part time and full-time courses, was forced to stop their full-time courses.
However, somehow Codesmith remains open, although they have been fined.
Attend a Coding Bootcamp that is Approved by the State of CA Bureau for Private Post Secondary Education so that your investment of time and effort is protected.
Months after this post a license was secured by Codesmith. They opened their doors in 2015 and it took them 4 years to comply with the state of ca law.