Dive Brief:
- Reactor Core, a network of coding schools, engineers, educators and hackers, has developed a new methodology for standardizing the reporting of student outcomes across the fledgling coding bootcamp industry.
- The Standard Student Outcome Methodology includes standardized formulas to determine attrition, placement, and exemption, and it is designed to be applied easily across coding bootcamps, regardless of how much data collection and documentation they had in the past.
- Reactor Core expects to have the methodology applied to its entire network’s student outcomes data reporting by 2017 and has already done so with its leading coding school, Hack Reactor.
Dive Insight:
A major critique of coding bootcamps has been that there are no regulations relating to student outcomes reporting.
Bootcamps routinely claim extremely high levels of student success, including near perfect job placement rates. There is little public detail about the numbers that go into their calculations - is every student who enrolled counted? Do students have to be employed in a job in their field? The SSOM would provide a level of standardization that would create greater accountability in the market, helping prospective students figure out where their money can best be spent.
If the SSOM gets widespread adoption, it could facilitate policy conversations at the federal level about whether to expand financial aid to coding bootcamps. There is a concern the sector will grow like the for-profit sector did, but early quality control measures may help.