Students say that Holberton School, a coding bootcamp where students don't pay until they get a job, is more like 'Lord of the Flies' than the inclusive educational experience they were promised

If you took a BART train in the San Francisco Bay Area earlier this year, you may have seen ads for a coding bootcamp called Holberton School. These ads promised an "Ivy League salary" in a career as a software engineer, without the degree — or the student debt.

Rather than paying traditional tuition, most Holberton students in the US sign an income sharing agreement (ISA). Once a Holberton graduate gets a job – in any field – paying $40,000 a year or more, they're committed to paying 17% of their earnings back to the school, up to a cap of $85,000. (Those figures change at Holberton's international campuses, but the model is the same. Some students also opt to pay the $85,000 upfront.)

The school boasts of graduates landing jobs at companies like LinkedIn, Google, Tesla, Apple, and Facebook after completing the two-year program. 

The ISA model has gained popularity in Silicon Valley for its promise of increasing access to education without requiring students to take out loans, with Holberton and its fellow coding bootcamp program Lambda School — where students previously told Business Insider that they felt they would have been better off learning on their own — considered pioneers.

Based in San Francisco, with campuses worldwide, Holberton has raised $12.5 million from investors like Trinity Ventures and celebrities like singer Ne-Yo and Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra Jonas. In January, Holberton raised an undisclosed amount of new funding from Redpoint eventures, a Brazilian VC firm. According to PitchBook, it's valued at $33.2 million, though the school declined to comment on its valuation.

In fact, one of the students featured in the ads, Essence Boayue of the San Francisco Bay Area, says that it was that connection to Ne-Yo, one of her favorite artists and a respected activist in the Black community, that first brought her to Holberton as a student. The fact that Holberton doesn't charge tuition upfront sealed the deal, and she started in July 2018.

By her own description, she quickly emerged as a "star student" in the program — she sang at an event celebrating the opening of a new campus in San Francisco, and took a photo with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg during an event with Facebook and Holberton. 

Though Holberton could see her as a success story because she's now a full-time engineer at a major tech company, she says that her sense of achievement was tempered by the realization that she, and her classmates, weren't being given the education or guidance they needed to succeed. Within a few months of joining, and after listening to her classmates who weren't doing as well, she came to believe that Holberton was not giving students resources proportionate to the steep income-sharing expectations, like strong mentors, a better curriculum, and job search help.

Business Insider spoke to Boayue and nine other current or former students, in interviews held prior to the coronavirus outbreak in the US. Some of these sources asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from the school — but they echoed Boayue's sentiments. Many of the students we spoke to independently compared the Holberton program to "Lord of the Flies," the 1954 novel by William Golding about a group of boys stranded on an island trying to govern themselves.

Specifically, they say, Holberton's reliance on a so-called peer learning model — where students learn software engineering concepts from each other, not a teacher — left them feeling uncertain if they were actually learning what they needed to in order to pursue a new career in the tech industry. 

Even after graduation, the students say, they end up receiving little to no help from Holberton in finding jobs, despite lofty promises of access to a network of mentors and alumni. Instead, they say, the months after leaving Holberton consisted of self-education on how to nail an engineering job interview, while also undergoing a grueling job search. 

While the school brands itself as being a welcoming environment for a diverse student body from a variety of backgrounds, Boayue says that in reality, the school places unreasonable burdens on its students — particularly, but not only, on students of color — and doesn't take feedback on how to make things better.

These complaints comes not long after the school found itself under the scrutiny of local authorities. In January, California's Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE) sent an emergency notice ordering Holberton to cease enrolling new students, instruction, and collecting tuition, saying that there was "substantial evidence" that it obtained approval to operate "by fraud" in July 2018, while students were being "harmed financially." Some of the relevant claims were made to the BPPE by some of the students interviewed for this story.

After a hearing, the BPPE softened its stance and issued a modified decision, requiring only for Holberton to stop offering certain portions of the program, but otherwise allowing it to continue operating normally. However, Holberton is still facing a non-emergency hearing that could see the BPPE suspend or even revoke Holberton's license to operate — though the pandemic put that hearing on pause.

"It is Holberton's position that the allegations made by these students to the BPPE, and to you, are unfounded," a spokesperson said in an extensive written statement to Business Insider. We have included responses from Holberton on specific points throughout the story.

Ultimately, Boayue says, she feels "guilty" about being part of Holberton's marketing and possibly encouraging students of color to apply for the school. "The more I'm on advertisements, the more someone else can say, 'She looks like me,'" Boayue said.

Boayue says she felt unhappy with the Holberton about five months after starting, but had completely soured on the school after finishing her requisite nine months of coursework. By then, she says she couldn't give Holberton the benefit of the doubt anymore.

She maintained her relationship with the school even after graduation, but says that she only felt comfortable speaking out about Holberton after she began her job. While she ultimately got a job, she says, her experiences at Holberton, coupled with listening to the experiences of her classmates, ultimately compelled her to speak out.

The school promises students access to "professional advisors, mentors, and affiliated industry leaders," for networking and professional development. Those opportunities never materialized, the former students say, and they never met with any mentors. 

Holberton says it does not claim to provide job search assistance, but it does point students in "helpful directions" like arranging introductions, sending job and internship opportunities, holding meetups and online groups to connect students with industry professionals, encouraging students to reach out to alumni, and making engineering interview training an "integral part" of its curriculum.

Regardless, former students say that they first came to Holberton in large part because of the school's promised connections at companies like Apple, Facebook, Tesla, and NASA. 

"They really sell you on their network," a former student said. "They're really dropping the names down. That's really what sold me."

But in the end, students say, they were on their own when it came to finding a job.

For example, Holberton cofounder Kalache wrote in an email to students that a school networking event in the summer of 2018 would host "40 employers" from companies "ranging from early-stage startups like Gremlin up to well-established companies like Amazon."

But most of those prospective employers didn't show up, former students say, and there was no explanation for why. Holberton confirmed the incident but dodged responsibility: "The low attendance was unfortunate but outside of the school's control," the Holberton spokesperson said.

As for the actual job search process, former students say that they were discouraged from actively seeking leads from Holberton's alumni network, and were instead told to wait passively for the school to "bring the network" to them. 

A different former student says that once you finish with Holberton, "you felt like you were forgotten about." Since then, he's been mostly working odd jobs, such as walking dogs and driving for Uber and Lyft, while sending out hundreds of job applications – all without assistance or any contact from Holberton, he says. 

"I've gone to meetups, done my best to get into the industry, and Holberton School didn't help," the former student said. 

The ISA model isn't debt-proof, and students face financial strain

Current and former students we talked to say that while it's true they didn't need to make payments to Holberton during their education, the program still placed a strain on their finances. 

School administration discourages students from taking part-time jobs while they're going through the program, urging them to focus on their studies. Holberton says it does encourage students to commit to its curriculum full-time, but that it works with outside organizations ​to help gather funding for students in need.

Some students don't think it's doing enough. Not having a part-time job can be completely untenable for students that don't come from wealth, and not everyone who needed it received financial aid. In places like the San Francisco Bay Area, where the cost of living is notoriously high, that presented a real problem for some. One former student says that by about six months into the program, he had maxed out his credit cards from commuting expenses into San Francisco and buying groceries, and found himself unable to pay rent.

Boayue and other students felt like the school ignored the financial and health struggles that some students — particularly students of color — faced. While Holberton trumpets a commitment to diversity and inclusion through its marketing and branding (like the meeting rooms named after famous people of color or events for cultural holidays), it's really "fake woke," she says, since it doesn't do enough to address systemic hardships experienced by students.

"They do a really good job of trying to brand themselves as a school that cares about diversity and inclusion," Boayue said. "When it comes down to it, they talk the talk, but they don't walk the walk."

Former student Philliou says that students of color and students with disabilities in particular feel frustrated by the realities of the Holberton School. A Holberton spokesperson says the school is ADA compliant and "are committed to doing anything we can to welcome people of all backgrounds, absolutely including people with disabilities."

"They paint themselves as the pinnacle of diversity," Philliou said. "And yet there's no accommodation for students with disabilities or health conditions."

One student said that she went on medical leave after having already exceeded the school's maximum number of excused absences. Even with a doctor's note, she says, she had points docked from her grade. Ultimately, she says, she wasn't able to make up the difference, and got kicked out — leaving her on the hook to pay back thousands in tuition while now working as a freelancer.

"I'm stuck in debt for 24 months," the former student said. "It was a really disappointing experience. I wish I didn't apply in the first place."

Holberton disputes this account, saying this was a "highly unlikely scenario," and that any student wouldn't have to repay tuition unless they met the income threshold. Generally, a student's contract gets cancelled if they leave within one month of starting the program, but after that, they're on the hook to pay back their ISAs.

"What students owe is, according to regulations, proportional to what they consume," a Holberton spokesperson said. "Students have the opportunity to withdraw from the program up to one month after they start at no cost. That courtesy is specific to Holberton. The rest of the repayment guidelines are established by regulations. Specifically, after the first month and until up to 60% of the curriculum is consumed (which happens around the 8 month mark), students owe a fraction of the tuition based on the clock hours they consumed. Only beyond the 60% completion mark do students owe the full tuition amount. Students only pay back the school if they are employed and make at least $3,333/month."

It also said that it has paused tuition payments for graduated students who have lost their jobs during the coronavirus pandemic.

A 'scare tactic'

Holberton is now facing a challenge to the income sharing agreement that forms the basis for its entire business model. California's BPPE declared at a hearing in January that Holberton ISAs signed by students at its flagship San Francisco campus before July 2018 are unenforceable, and that the school should stop the Career Track, a portion of the curriculum where students work on applying to jobs and report to the school about their progress.

Boayue, who attended the hearing with several of her classmates, says that there was "mass panic" within the school in the immediate aftermath of the decision, and that it's been "a little chaotic" since. 

Holberton stopped offering the Career Track in line with the decision, but is currently allowed to otherwise operate normally, pending a follow-up hearing with the BPPE to review the matter. However, depending on how it goes, that hearing could ultimately see Holberton's license to operate in California as a school suspended or revoked. The spokesperson says that the school is "eager" to work with authorities and "bring these few remaining issues to closure."

In the interim, the school says that it has retroactively decreased the amount that current and previous students in San Francisco have to repay to the school in tuition, to reflect the removal of the Career Track from the curriculum. Current students in the city have the option to either pick a new track, or to leave the program with a reduced tuition repayment obligation. A "few" affected students were defaulted to one of the two options by not responding to the offer to choose, the school says. 

Holberton School says that those revised agreements don't constitute a new ISA, and that it was merely notifying students of what amounts to a refund.

Boayue, however, sees these offers as a way to push students into signing a modification to their agreements with the school without reading the fine print.

"To me, that sounds like a scare tactic to not think too hard about what the contract says," Boayue said. 

Below is Holberton School's statement on the BPPE matter:

Holberton is committed to following local laws and regulations in every state and country in which they operate. Holberton is working with the BPPE to ensure that their San Francisco campus complies with California regulations. While the career track program was designed based on students' feedback and has delivered amazing ​results​, the school of course complied with the amended emergency order and immediately ceased the career track module as required. The other claims in the original emergency action were transferred to the standard administrative review process because the California Department of Consumer Affairs found that the allegations that triggered the emergency action – some of which were brought to the BPPE by the same students you interviewed for this story – did not support an emergency action. It is Holberton's position that the allegations made by these students to the BPPE, and to you, are unfounded. There are no additional updates on the California regulatory situation since the pandemic has slowed state processes, but the school is eager to work with the BPPE and DCA to bring these few remaining issues to closure.

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