Have Coding Boot Camps Lost Their Appeal?

Inside Higher Ed

Kathryn Palmer

January 9, 2025

2U’s decision to shut down its coding boot camps is the latest sign that changes are afoot in the alternative credentials sector.

In the 2010s, people who wanted a faster, cheaper on-ramp into a well-paying career increasingly turned to coding boot camps instead of traditional college degrees.

For anywhere between $5,000 and $20,000, students—many of whom already had four-year degrees but were looking for a career change—could enroll in a boot camp and learn to code in a matter of months. After graduation, they could expect to land an in-demand job as an entry-level coder at a tech company.

Despite allegations that some of the for-profit companies running boot camps misled students about curricula and job-placement rates, thousands of students flocked to the programs, and more than 100 boot-camp providers started up during the 2010s.

But now, public enthusiasm has seemingly cooled and many prominent boot-camp providers are closing shop.

Just last week, one popular Reddit post read, “Boot camps will not get you a job right now. Stop asking.”

That was only a month after the online program management company 2U announced the closure of the boot-camp programs it offered in partnership with universities. “Simply put, the long-form, intensive training that boot camps provide no longer aligns with what the market wants and needs,” Matt Norden, 2U’s interim CEO, said in a news release.

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