Approaching a Career Change with a Growth Mindset
Approaching a Career Change with a Growth Mindset
One of the most exciting parts about Lambda School is that it makes web development and data science careers accessible to anyone. Lambda not only gives students the chance to get an in-depth tech education from home, we also offer more options to pay for their coding bootcamp than they can find almost anywhere else.
Whether you’re ready to pay tuition upfront, you want to spread out your payments over time, or you want to start your tech career first and pay tuition later, there’s a pathway to make Lambda affordable for you.
Lambda offers three main types of tuition options to students: deferred tuition, tuition installments, and upfront payments. Each of these options are good for different students for different reasons. In this article, we’ll go over the pros and cons for each and why they might be a good fit under different circumstances.
Lambda School is unique, because unlike other programs, it gives students the option to participate in a deferred tuition coding bootcamp. You can learn how to code right now and leave paying your tuition for when you’ve landed your dream job. Neat, huh?
There are two main forms of deferred tuition at Lambda: the Lambda School Income Share Agreement and the California Retail Installment Contract.
The Lambda School ISA is a deferred tuition contract that doesn’t require you to pay a penny in tuition until you’ve accepted a qualified position that pays more than $50,000 a year (or the equivalent of $4,166.67 per month).
Under an ISA, you’ll be required to make monthly payments until you’ve hit one of the following benchmarks:
Qualifying Positions
A “qualifying position” is any role in any field where your participation in Lambda School helped you get the job—it doesn’t have to be directly associated with web development or data science. Some examples of qualified positions include:
No matter what career you find, you’ll never pay Lambda more than $30,000 for tuition.
An ISA is a great choice for someone who can’t afford to make tuition payments immediately. It’s especially ideal for students intent on upgrading to a job in data science or web development, because it allows you to make payments after getting a more lucrative position and when you’re more likely to have discretionary funds left over.
Another benefit of an ISA is that it has protections built into it that cover financial hardship. Should you lose your job or should your income dip below $4,166.67 per month, your payments will automatically be put on pause after you’ve reported the change to your ISA servicer. And if you never get hired in a qualifying position? Then you never have to pay, simple as that.
Although the Lambda School ISA gives you more time to pay your tuition, you may end up paying more in tuition later than you would pay if you paid tuition upfront. At the high end, your ISA payments may total up to $30,000. In contrast, residents of some states are eligible for a 50% discount on their upfront tuition and will only be required to pay $15,000 total. In addition, Income Share Agreements are currently unavailable to California residents.
Learn more about the Lambda School Income Share Agreement (ISA).
The CA RIC is a tuition agreement for residents of California. It has most of the same features as an ISA—it doesn’t require upfront tuition, it doesn’t accrue interest, and it can be deferred until you’re in a job making $50,000 or more—however, all students who sign a CA RIC are required to pay $30,000 in tuition, regardless of how many payments it takes. Like an ISA, a CA RIC allows you to pay your tuition over time once you’re in a qualified position.
To be eligible for a CA RIC, you must be a resident of California and either a U.S. citizen, permanent resident, or DACA recipient. You must also not have any other active RICs or ISAs.
Pros & Cons of an RIC
CA RICs have most of the same pros and cons of ISAs. It’s a great option for California residents who would like to put off tuition until they’re making a higher salary, and upfront tuition in California is the same amount as the total you would pay under a RIC: $30,000.
Learn more about the California Retail Installment Contract (CA RIC).
ISAs and RICs are not the right choice for everyone. Tuition installment plans provide another option. Through this plan, Lambda students pay tuition in three separate installments spread throughout the time of their course. Payment schedules and the required payment amount may vary based on which state you live in—residents of certain states are eligible for a 50% discount on the total amount owed.
Your tuition installment plan begins after you’ve enrolled at Lambda. You’ll receive an email invoice for every installment, which can be paid via ACH, wire transfer, or check.
Tuition installments help you avoid paying a large sum of money upfront and the subsequent buyer’s anxiety that comes with it. This option is more manageable than an upfront payment, and it may also save you interest by cutting down on the number of loans you need to take out to afford your education.
The tuition installment plan is a great fit if you live in a qualified state and want to save the extra costs you’d pay for a deferred tuition plan—remember that deferred tuition can cost up to $15,000 more than tuition installments in some states.
If you live in California, Washington DC, Georgia, and Texas, a tuition installment plan may not be worth it to you, because it will require you to pay back the same amount you’d pay in an RIC plan except on a more crunched timeline and with bigger payment amounts.
Learn more about paying tuition in installments.
The final tuition option is the full pie: upfront tuition. Students who choose to not defer their tuition or pay installments must pay their state’s full tuition upfront. For students in California, Washington DC, Georgia, and Texas, upfront tuition costs $30,000. For residents of all other states and international students, tuition is $15,000.
If you choose to pay tuition upfront, the total must be paid by your Lambda School enrollment deadline. Similar to the tuition installments plan, you’ll be sent an email invoice that you can pay via ACH, wire transfer, or check. With upfront tuition, you have the freedom to make multiple payments towards your total amount just as long as you’ve paid for it in full by the deadline.
Upfront tuition can save you a lot more money than a deferred tuition plan. Instead of waiting until after graduation to pay up to $30,000, students in qualifying states who opt to pay upfront tuition get that cost sliced in half to $15,000. That’s a lot of Benjamin Franklins you get to hold onto.
The biggest drawback to upfront tuition is the most obvious one: you have to pay all of your tuition at once and somewhat quickly. That option is not possible for every student and may not make sense for you.
Learn more about paying tuition upfront.
Lambda School has options for every financial circumstance to get you through the door and on your way to an exciting tech career. Explore Lambda’s tuition options or if you’re ready to get started, apply now.
