On the first day of Daniel Rosenbaum’s 12-week coding course at George Washington University, the veneer of a fancy college education was on display. An associate dean visited students to welcome them to the program, and he touted its strong quality.
But from that point on, it was a for-profit company, 2U, that ran the class and taught its students.
2U, a publicly-traded company with headquarters in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., boasts nearly a billion dollars in annual revenue. It’s an online program manager, or OPM, an outside company that colleges hire to help expand their academic offerings.
A significant chunk of 2U’s business is the coding boot camps it operates at more than 50 prominent universities nationwide.
Colleges have long relied on OPMs to help them find students who would not normally enroll in their programs — collecting revenue from those students along the way. But in the past year, leaders inside and outside of higher ed have begun to sour on the companies. Recently, the U.S. Department of Education released guidance that proposed placing universities’ relationships with OPMs, among other entities, under greater scrutiny.
“Are we witnessing a reckoning? I would say yes, though it’s moving very slowly,” said Stephanie Hall, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning Washington think tank. “If there is going to be an ‘accountability’ moment, this is it.”
2U recently filed a lawsuit seeking to halt the Education Department’s proposed guidelines, which were set to take effect on September 1. The company argued that the federal agency failed to follow its own rule-making procedures when releasing the guidance to colleges.
On Tuesday, James Kvaal, the U.S. under secretary of education, published a blog post that acknowledges the strong reaction in comments to the Education Department’s proposed guidelines and that appears to relax the definition of which activities are “subject to third-party servicer requirements under the guidance.” It also moves back the September deadline to give “additional time for institutions and companies to come into compliance with the guidance.”
“Specifically,” Kvaal wrote, “we will delay the effective date of the guidance letter, and the September 1, 2023, date will no longer be in effect. The effective date of the revised final guidance letter will be at least six months after its publication, to allow institutions and companies to meet any reporting requirements.”
Long-simmering criticism of OPMs has focused on their degree programs — such as a high-priced master’s degree in social work at the University of Southern California, or a physician-assistant program at Arcadia University that never got off the ground. These relationships, because they involve federal financial aid, would be subject to the oversight proposed by the Biden administration.
Yet the coding boot camps, because they don’t involve federal aid, would be left untouched. Hall said that students at boot camps also need strong consumer protections, but because they aren’t receiving federal loans or Pell Grants, “I find it a bit harder to get folks to pay attention to that, or to feel that it’s urgent.”
A lot of people that I knew in the boot camp, they never got a job.
Meanwhile, unsatisfied graduates of coding boot camps, which are meant to prepare enrollees for jobs in the tech sector, say they feel misled by the colleges that have lent their names to these programs.
“I blame the university for the amount of money I was comfortable committing,” said Robert Arnold, a University of Washington boot-camp student who spent $13,000 on the program, but now regrets his decision to enroll. Arnold called the program overpriced, and he said subjects are taught so rapidly that the only students who can keep up are those with prior coding experience who are attending full-time — without also working a job.
2U told The Chronicle that its programs are committed to delivering a high-quality student experience.
“Every aspect of our partners’ boot camps — from curriculum to career support — is informed by continuous feedback from students, employers, and faculty from 50 nonprofit institutions to help ensure these programs deliver great in-course experiences and post-program outcomes,” said Brad Adams, 2U’s chief university operations officer. “This consistent and global feedback loop, along with significant university oversight, gives these boot camps more accountability than the vast majority of technology-training programs in this country, and helps us support our partners in delivering high-quality programs for working professionals looking to improve their lives through education.”
Those partner colleges usually perform some oversight of the boot camps, while allowing the classes to be taught on their respective campuses (or, if the courses are remote, with their name attached). In exchange, they reap a share of the profits.
But a University of Washington professor who has studied boot camps, Amy J. Ko, said colleges should be cautious about jumping into an industry that has left students with “lots of promises about jobs that didn’t materialize, lots of expense, and lots of stress.”
Although universities monitor the programs, that oversight is often conducted by continuing-education departments geared toward adult learners — as opposed to computer-science faculty, who are experts in the field.
“It’s actually quite a big risk for the university to use its reputation in that way,” said Ko, one of the authors of a 2017 study of the barriers boot-camp students face. The study, which did not include 2U-affiliated programs, found a mixed track record of success for boot-camp graduates.
The Council on Integrity in Results Reporting, a nonprofit that tracks boot camps among more than a dozen member programs not run by 2U, reports a wide range of student outcomes. Some programs graduate nearly all of their students, while others graduate only two-thirds, or less. Job-placement rates are generally favorable, but at some programs, more than a quarter of graduates are still searching for a job 180 days after graduation.
‘They’re All Actually McDonald’s’
Universities’ financial stake in the boot camps is clear. The University of California at Irvine receives a 20-percent share of revenue from its boot camp, more than $1 million a year. According to a 2021 paper by the Century Foundation, that arrangement, in which 80 percent of the revenue goes to the OPM, is fairly typical.
Brian Breen, Irvine’s chief corporate engagement and partnerships officer, said the university vetted 2U before signing on with the company in 2017 — and the vetting process included speaking with other colleges that had signed similar deals.
“We’re serving students that we normally couldn’t serve,” Breen said. “And providing opportunities for them that we normally couldn’t provide through our other programs.” But the transactional relationship at the heart of the enterprise can be lost on some students.
“I didn’t realize that it was completely a third-party company,” said Rosenbaum, the student who attended the George Washington University program.
K. Cyrus Homayounpour was the George Washington University associate dean who welcomed Rosenbaum’s class to the boot-camp program in 2019.
Recently, Homayounpour told the U.S. Department of Education in a public comment that, “at my institution I had our full-time faculty from the appropriate school review and vet the curriculum for each of our boot camps and also approve the hiring of the instructors. We also approved all marketing assets and collateral.”
I was not prepared for a junior-level position like they told me I would be.
Nevertheless, when students enroll at a University of Central Florida boot camp, they may be unaware the curriculum will be largely the same as the George Washington University boot camp, or the Michigan State University boot camp — since 2U runs them all, and instructors routinely shuffle between the various locations.
“I just used the exact same curriculum and the exact same code,” said Max VanDuyne, a former 2U instructor who taught in multiple states, at different university-affiliated boot camps.
“Everybody thinks that they’re getting a better burger,” VanDuyne said. “But they’re all actually McDonald’s.”
A 2U spokesperson acknowledged the similarities in boot camps operating at different universities, but added that institutions play a crucial role in vetting the curriculum, and college faculty regularly review, edit, and oversee what students are learning.
By the time Rosenbaum understood the university’s limited role, he said it was too late to request a refund of the nearly $11,000 he had paid. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, he views the aggressive sales pitch from 2U recruiters — including claims that the class was filling up quickly — with skepticism.
“It was a big red flag,” said Rosenbaum, who has since founded a company that provides mentoring and skills-building opportunities for boot-camp graduates.
A 2U spokesperson said admissions counselors are not trained to fill seats but are instead focused on helping students meet important program deadlines, such as application and enrollment due dates. Some boot camps have limited class sizes, and fill up fast, and admissions counselors may mention that, 2U said.
Other students in boot camps run by 2U have complained of misunderstandings during the enrollment stage.
“They actually use fake email addresses,” said Arnold, the University of Washington boot-camp student who began his program in August.
Arnold said the “student success manager,” a 2U employee, has emailed students from ".edu” email addresses purporting to be from the University of Washington. And she also once wrote him from an Arizona State University email address, Arnold said.
The University of Washington ended its 2U partnership, but it did not provide specific reasons to The Chronicle.
2U called it a “joint decision” that was “related to a shift in the institution’s larger strategic plans.”
In a statement to The Chronicle, 2U wrote that transparency in admissions is a top priority for the company, and that it “is built into our model, from marketing to enrollment.” Program websites and marketing emails explicitly disclose 2U’s role, the statement said, and admissions staff “are trained to introduce themselves as calling on behalf of our university, ‘in partnership with Trilogy Education.”
Breen, the UC-Irvine administrator, said his institution removed the “.edu” email addresses for 2U employees as part of a larger effort to eliminate any “gray areas” between the university and 2U.
“We want to be very clear and transparent with students about the program, and the affiliation with 2U, so there’s no confusion,” Breen said. “It’s a collaborative program.”
‘As Deep as a Pond’
At the George Washington boot camp, Rosenbaum said there was only minimal instruction on each topic. As advertised, students received training in a full array of coding languages, but, he said, “it’s as wide as an ocean, but as deep as a pond … you touch upon these topics just enough to be familiar with them, but not professionally competent.” After completing boot camp, Rosenbaum said he bombed his first job interview. “I was not prepared for a junior-level position like they told me I would be,” he said. (The university’s boot-camp website currently features phrases like “increase your earning potential” and “our boot camp graduates are in demand.”)
2U officials counter that most graduates have a more positive experience.
One of 2U’s successful “learner stories” that the company features on its website is Andrew Rodriguez Betancourt, who completed the UCF coding boot camp at the end of 2020, after losing his bartending job at Walt Disney World Resort because of the pandemic.
2U made Rodriguez available to The Chronicle for an interview, and he expressed deep appreciation for his boot-camp training, which he credited with providing a solid foundation in the field of coding. Rodriguez said the career-services staff at the boot camp helped prepare him for the job market, and the group projects he worked on with other students were extremely gratifying.
But Rodriguez also acknowledged that it took him about a year following the boot camp to land a permanent full-time coding job.
Until he landed that job, Rodriguez worked freelance coding gigs and contract jobs, which provided both income and an opportunity to further develop his coding skills.
“It was very challenging,” Rodriguez said. “I applied for maybe 100-something companies.”
“If you don’t go through those rejections and those interviews … it’s really hard to know what you need to do.”
While satisfied with his boot-camp training, Rodriguez also said it only provides about “60 percent” of what is necessary to launch a new career in coding. Graduates still need to fill in the gaps on their own, he said, by furthering their coding studies and continuing to do coding projects.
“A lot of people that I knew in the boot camp, they never got a job,” Rodriguez said.
The University of Central Florida declined to comment on its boot-camp partnership.
2U says its boot camps clearly bolster graduates’ earning potential. The company points to a 2021 Gallup-2U survey of boot-camp graduates, which found that, one year after finishing, the median salary for all graduates was $11,000 higher than what they were earning while studying in the program.
Boot-camp graduates also reported incomes that are comparable to what bachelor’s-degree holders typically earn, and in some cases higher, according to the survey.
But the survey results also showed that some graduates did not experience big positive changes in their career.
Roughly 47 percent of survey respondents said their boot-camp education “did not impact my job situation at all.”
‘You’re Completely Detached’
As Rosenbaum was struggling to land his first coding job, one company was willing to hire him: 2U.
Hundreds of boot-camp graduates have taken jobs as 2U teaching assistants following graduation. Other recent graduates are hired as tutors.
For some students, such jobs are a temporary way to further strengthen their coding skills — while earning a steady, although modest, paycheck.
But other graduates accept the jobs because they cannot find employment elsewhere. And 2U’s official job-placement statistics include graduates who take TA or tutoring positions within the company. A 2U spokesperson said that, out of over 60,000 graduates since its coding boot camps began, 2U has hired 388 graduates for positions such as TAs, student-success managers, and entry-level tech talent. That figure represents only 0.6 of a percent of total graduates, according to the company.
Some instructional staff bristled at 2U’s streamlining of the assignment-grading process. Traditionally, TAs graded the coding assignments submitted by their students, but beginning in 2019, 2U moved that important job function to a new centralized grading department.
Critics viewed the change as a cost-cutting move, and they said the student experience suffered as a result, since students no longer receive grades from the instructors who are directly teaching them.
“You’re completely detached from the class,” said one former centralized grader, who still works for 2U in another capacity, and who requested anonymity to speak candidly to The Chronicle.
The employee said he “heard a lot of students complain about either the grade they got, or the information they got in response to the grade they were given.”
“From my experience, Having the TAs do the grading better serves students,” said the employee, who quickly switched to a different position at 2U because he found centralized grading to be “kind of boring.”
2U told The Chronicle that centralized grading, which “is more expensive for the company to support,” actually improved the student experience, by reducing delays and removing the possibility of bias.
“With centralized grading,” the company said in a statement, “the average turnaround time for grading and feedback has been reduced from 3 weeks to just 3-4 days.”
For students who successfully complete their boot-camp program, a highly competitive job market awaits.
Graduates who’ve landed a job, like Sarah Kinneer, urge their fellow students to take advantage of the free services offered by 2U during the boot camp, like career-services events.
Kinneer landed her first job after chatting with an executive from AudioEye at a 2U Project Demo Day. With help from her father, she had researched the participating employers in the days leading up to the networking event, and she knew that AudioEye, which specializes in making websites more accessible, was a perfect fit.
She still works there today.
“I’m not typical,” Kinneer said of her instantly successful job hunt. “But I also put more work in than is typical.”
