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Should The Government Pay For Veterans To Attend Code Schools? (backchannel.com)
mirandakatz writes: David Molina was finishing up his 12-year time in the army when he started teaching himself to code, and started to think that he might like to pursue it professionally once his service was done. But with a wife and family, he couldn't dedicate the four years he'd need to get an undergraduate degree in computer science -- and the GI Bill, he learned, won't cover accelerated programs like code schools. So he started an organization dedicated to changing that. Operation Code is lobbying politicians to allow vets to attend code schools through the GI Bill and prepare themselves for the sorts of stable, middle-class jobs that have come to be called "blue-collar coding." Molina sees it as a serious failing that the GI Bill will cover myriad vocational programs, but not those that can prepare veterans for one of the fastest-growing industries in existence.
The issue seems to be quality. The group estimates there are already nine code schools in the U.S. which do accept GI Bill benefits -- but only "longer-standing ones that have made it through State Approving Agencies." Meanwhile, Course Report calculates 18,000 people finished coding bootcamps last year -- and that two thirds of them found a job within three months.
But I just liked how Molina described his introduction into the world of programmers. While stationed at Dover Air Force Base, he attended Baltimore's long-standing Meetup for Ruby on Rails, where "People taught me about open source. There was pizza, there was beer. They made me feel like I was at home."
The issue seems to be quality. The group estimates there are already nine code schools in the U.S. which do accept GI Bill benefits -- but only "longer-standing ones that have made it through State Approving Agencies." Meanwhile, Course Report calculates 18,000 people finished coding bootcamps last year -- and that two thirds of them found a job within three months.
But I just liked how Molina described his introduction into the world of programmers. While stationed at Dover Air Force Base, he attended Baltimore's long-standing Meetup for Ruby on Rails, where "People taught me about open source. There was pizza, there was beer. They made me feel like I was at home."
Yeah, instead of "Coding Boot Camps", I'd call most of the "Code Mills". Maybe all they are good for is seeing if you have an affinity for programming.. not actually giving you all the skills you need to succeed.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
There is zero reason to give them anything but their last paycheck on the way out the door.
As a veteran, I pretty much agree with this. The military is 100% volunteer, and the pay is pretty good. Of course we need to take care of people that were wounded or disabled in the line of duty, but for everyone else, the handouts and entitlements are excessive. The benefits are also heavily skewed toward those that need them the least. I used a VA loan to buy a house in San Jose, one of the most expensive housing markets in the world, and over the life of the loan I will get about $200k in taxpayer funded subsidies, which I am happy to accept but certainly don't "need". Yet many veterans living in trailer parks don't have the ability or knowledge to benefit from the same program.
In many ways, veterans are just another special interest group, with a huge voting block to back them up. It is difficult for politicians to resist their demands because they don't want attack ads claiming they "don't care about vets".
The benefits are a lure to get people in.
I wonder how effective that is. I enlisted in the Marines on my 18th birthday, and I had never heard of any benefits (and in general, had no idea what I was signing up for). Maybe the more brain-oriented branches (AF, Navy) are different, but I never heard any Marine say he enlisted to pay for college, or to get a home loan.