Having trouble deciding if a coding bootcamp is a good alternative to a traditional 4 year education? There are many factors to consider when making the decision to take a coding bootcamp: the cost, value of the skills you will gain, and how much time you are able to commit to learning. Here’s the breakdown.
Coding Bootcamp vs. College
There are many considerations to make when choosing whether to learn to code at a coding bootcamp, or by doing a computer science degree at university. Coding bootcamps are around 3 to 6 months long, intensive, teach you very practical, applicable, up-to-date skills, and give you career coaching. If you attend a coding bootcamp you will need to prove your skills through your portfolio. CS degrees are around 4 years long, cover in-depth theoretical material, teach you established programming practices, and provide you with a degree to show for it, but you will still need to prove your skills in a technical interview. Coding bootcamps cost between $10,000-$20,000 all up front, whereas CS degrees can cost up to $20,000 per semester.
Cost
When it comes to cost, bootcamps have a traditional degree beat by a landslide. The average cost of an in-person coding bootcamp is around $11,906. Online bootcamps are slightly less expensive at$11,118. The typical bootcamp graduate has an average salary increase of 50.5% or $23,724. A degree from a top computer science program in the United States ranges about$60,000-$70,000 per year. Although there are universities with tuitions under$20,000, cost of living and additional material fees add to how much money you’d be spending over the course of several years. A student taking a part-time bootcamp can graduate in several months and still have a full-time job earning an income. In the time it would take a student to get through one semester of college, a bootcamp student can develop the skills to graduate as developers and enter the job market earning $60-$70k upon graduation.
Return on Investment
Sometimes seeing the price tag on a coding bootcamp may seem high for such a short program. This is why it’s important to calculate your ROI. While the job market may be tough to navigate for a traditional college graduate, most coding graduates find a job within 3 months of graduation due to the demand for programming skills. Coding bootcamps thrive on their job placement rates, so it’s just as important for schools to place their graduates as it is for their alumi to start their new jobs in the tech industry. Timewise, coding bootcamps come out on top with regards to ROI since students are only investing several months instead of 4 years. Financially, bootcamps triumph as well. The average starting salary for a bootcamp graduate is $70,698, while a college graduate with a CS degree can expect an average salary of$50-106k. In the time it takes a CS student to graduate, a bootcamp graduate can potentially work their way to a senior level position and earn as much as someone with a computer science degree. When it comes to ROI, bootcamps take less time, are less expensive and offer the same earnings as a CS degree.
Time Commitment
If you are looking to launch your career as a developer as soon as possible, coding bootcamps are the best possible option to do so. You will learn the skills you need to be career ready through hands on training in a very short amount of time compared to a 4 year degree. Can you really learn the skills you need to be a developer in just a few short weeks? Absolutely. In fact, more big name companies like IBM, Google, and Apple are looking to hire applicants with skills over credentials. While a 4 year degree may give you more theory and in-depth knowledge via traditional study, if you learn by doing, and benefit from hands-on, project-based learning, then a coding bootcamp is a better option. The time it takes for a bootcamp student to work through a program and land a job usually takes less than half the time it would take a college student to earn their degree.
Career Outlook
Graduating from a coding bootcamp or with a CS degree from a university is very valuable in today’s job market and will continue to be as the demand for developers increases. An estimated 1 million technology jobs will go unfilled by 2020. There are a wide range of industries and job settings graduates can find themselves in. Whether it’s at a major corporation, working at a startup, or launching our own business, there are plenty of jobs to be filled. The software development field will grow by about 30 percent by 2026, with 253,400 jobs added by that time.
If you are ready to work towards a career as a developer, explore our different program options and get started!