Thousands Ivy leaguers and other college grads going to coding camps

A 22-year-old graduated last year with a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth in psychology and studio art that cost more than a quarter-million dollars. She sent out dozens of résumés looking for a full-time job in graphic design but wound up working a contract gig for a Boston clothing store. “I thought, they’ll see Dartmouth, and they’ll hire me,” Feng says. “That’s not really how it works, I found.” She figures programming is the best way to get the job she wants. Hence the basement, where she’s paying $11,500 for a three-month crash course in coding.

Thousands of students, about 70 percent of whom already have college degrees, are flocking to coding boot camps.

The schools took in a combined $59 million in revenue, or about $9,833 per student, estimates Course Report co-founder Liz Eggleston.

General Assembly started as a co-working space in New York’s Flatiron district in 2011 and evolved into boot camps in 13 cities across the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Hong Kong. The startup has raised $49.5 million from the likes of Jeff Bezos and Russian e-mail billionaire Yuri Milner. City No. 14, it says, will be Singapore.

The biggest concentration of schools remains in California, and some, including Dev and Hack Reactor, have established another source of revenue. They’ve cut deals with employers such as tech-industry PR firm Cision, promising an early crack at top graduates in exchange for fees worth 10 percent of each new employee’s first-year salary.

SOURCE – Bloomberg