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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."
No. New schools, even if they're "coding schools" still need to go through the normal procedures to attain recognition that they are a real school.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of schools scamming veterans. They offer fairly useless courses and the government pays.
Of course it would be good for veterans to learn coding but it should be a properly accredited school. It looks like there is a mechanism in place to properly vet (sic) schools and it should be followed.
Pizza and beer do not necessarily make a good school.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading 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".
if you can't learn to code on your own you can't learn to code. This is not an industry where you can learn some skill and be done. Coders are constantly retraining themselves to handle new technologies. Maybe this little snowflake should grow up and realize millions of people actually work there way through college studying late at night after working an 8 hour shift and then taking care of there kids.
He was paid wages for hose 12 years. He got *exactly* what he deserves.
Yeah, they want unreasonable things like treatment for medical conditions caused by their service, or the government to live up to the promises made when they signed up. People sign up under the promise of the GI Bill and other benefits, only to see them harder to get than promised.
Learn to love Alaska
Veterans benefits was a throwback to a time when service wasn't voluntary. Then, because VA is not "military spending", the veterans had all the benefits separated, inflated, and are now a political, not practical, issue. VA loans, near guaranteed employment (many places have overt veteran preference, and it's illegal for the US government to hire a person to a job if there's a less qualified veteran that meets the minimums). The benefits are a lure to get people in. Because the pay is low (compared to salary in the private sector), mainly because the military doesn't include the benefits (uniforms provided, housing provided, vehicles, transportation, recreation, and other things provided). So $20k in the military would be like 40-60k in the private sector. But, since that's not well advertised, the recruiters focus on your "exit bonus" of the GI Bill, and other benefits. If the VA benefits weren't there, the recruits would reduce.
There are abuses on both sides. Those that get good benefits they didn't "need", and those who need a benefit that is provided in some form, but not in the form they need (education for this guy, housing for the homeless vets).
Learn to love Alaska
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.
I imagine the pay isn't as good as in the private sector
You imagine wrong. For an 18 year old high school graduate, the pay is pretty good. When you add in basic necessities that are provided for free (food, housing, ammunition), it is a pretty good deal
... and volunteering is more noble than otherwise.
My reasons for joining had nothing to do with being "noble" or "serving my country" or any of that crap. It was a testosterone driven desire for adventure. I wanted to jump out of airplanes, ride in helicopters, and go see the world (Yes, I did all of those things as a Marine).
Perhaps some effort should be spent ensuring active duty personnel and veterans are offered opportunities ...
Veterans benefits, like any other entitlement, will always be twisted toward those that can organize, manipulate the system, and contribute to politicians, ... in other words successful people that don't really need the benefits.
Giving you some opportunity to catch up with the rest of us seems reasonable.
Except that we don't need to "catch up". According to the DOL, veterans are doing better than average in median income.
First we need a "coding school" that is worth a damn. For the rest of this post I am going to say programming and not coding.
No, these people are certainly turning out coders and not programmers. They will know git and unit testing, but they won't know Knuth or Turing from a hole in the ground.
If such a program is to be instituted, It's going to have to be designed by the likes of Google, Canonical, and even Microsoft.
The industry is not interested in training its own. Otherwise there wouldn't need to be these programs. But I'm taking the words "self paced" and "internship" to mean that you haven't seriously thought about this issue. Internships are not replacements for classroom instruction, and getting someone from being a complete novice to the point where it's even worth it to pair them with a more senior dev takes quite a lot of instruction.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.