The Future of Investing In Yourself
A shift is happening within the world. Technology continues to advance and software stays hungry, eating up many different industries in more ways than one.
As tech progresses and human capital shifts into more productive areas, those who create platforms and paths to help people transition from one path to the next may see significant value.
Those who tackle the problems faced within human capital may be able to create immense value.
Past Thinking
We all know that the world has changed drastically but most continue to follow the same systems of the past.
Authors such as Seth Godin talk about the problems with the current educational system but have also written about how the connection economy has changed the world.
Regular schools were great when they started out.
Different cohorts of people were able to attend and be trained in a specific way to fit within the prior system. From high school to college, students were able to progress within a particular system and gain opportunities.
They worked for a prior period. Things have changed and current training and paths may not be as viable or produce the right ROI.
The world moves at a much faster pace.
Blink.
Something’s changed.
The new economy just like the old one consists of connections and skills. This is done a bit differently, is more amplified, and creates different results when used properly.
The connection economy is just one key trend and it is something that is just getting started too.
How? According to to statistics on internet usage,
“As of April 2019, 56.1% of the world’s population has internet access, and 81% of the developed world.”
That’s right. Only 56.1%.
We’ve got quite a bit of ways to go on full internet adoption and deployment of goods and services in a super connected way across the globe.
But still, for those who do have access to the internet and see that the world is changing, how can they participate and have an impact?
It’s a tough question.
We all only know what we know and don’t know we don’t know.
We follow prior systems because they worked in the past and think it will work the same way in the future. But as Seth Godin and others point out, traditional school systems are outdated and overpriced.
Where does one go to participate in the new shift?
Thankfully, I think there are a variety of players that are stepping in and trying to address this problem, helping individuals to invest in themselves in a more meaningful way and be part of the new economy.
One of these players is Lambda School.
Lambda School
Lambda school is fascinating because it takes two aspects of life (education + a path to jobs) and combines them into a single full stack program.
Pretty simple idea right?
It’s simple but definitely hard to do.
Why?
Because coding camps have been around for a while.
Each of them have different structures and usually cost anywhere from $7,500 to $16,000.
But it is in this prohibitive arena of costs where Lambda shines.
Where most traditional colleges allow students to take out loans for courses that may or may not take them places, Lambda School goes in a different direction.
Lambda School scales income sharing agreements allowing students to gain exposure to a curriculum, to teachers, and to gaining hands-on experience for programming.
Students pay a fixed portion of their annual salary for a specific amount of time if they make $50,000 or over at finishing the program.
Evidently, this is an interesting way of doing schooling.
Lambda School is aligned with the student. Lambda succeeds when students succeed. They don’t succeed by metrics such as number of sign ups but by number of job placements.
On average, a student needs to get a $50,000 or above job so that the school can stay in business and succeed.
When the student thrives, the school succeeds.
What happens when a student can’t find a job or doesn’t meet that minimum income requirement?
They owe nothing.
Investors Want In
The startup has only been around for two year but has raised over $45 million to grow their program.
Lambda is Expanding
The school is expanding its model to other fields such as cybersecurity and even nursing.
Thanks for reading! Follow us if you liked this article.
Most Popular Reads from Absolute Zero:
