SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 4, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Hack Reactor collective of in-person and online programming schools focused on student career outcomes – which graduates over 1,000 Software Engineers annually – announced today they have partnered with leading education lending companies Pave and Affirm, to now offer financing for Hack Reactor's onsite and remote students in the United States. Students will be able to use the loans to cover the cost of tuition and other cost-of-living expenses.
Pave offers students 24 and 36 month payment options, with interest rates from 7% to 15% APR. They can cover up to $25,000 for tuition and moving expenses and currently require a minimum FICO credit score of 660.
"At Pave, we enable the success of young people by connecting them to affordable funding to further their education or relocate for their dream career," said Pave Cofounder and CEO Oren Bass. "Hack Reactor is exactly the type of investment in an individual's career that can propel their earnings significantly. We want to help make those outcomes even more accessible for people."
Led by PayPal Co-founder Max Levchin, Affirm approves students based on thousands of data points in addition to credit score, allowing them to approve more students for financing than would be approved by traditional lenders. They can offer students 12, 15 and 18 month payment options, with interest rates from 6% to 20% APR. They can cover up to $17,780, the full tuition cost of Hack Reactor, depending on creditworthiness.
"Hack Reactor's mission is built on empowering people through education, and that resonates with Affirm's mission of helping people live better lives," said Affirm Vice President of Merchant Services Brad Selby. "Through our partnership, together we can offer students affordable options, alleviate financial barriers, and open the door for students to pursue a career in technology they might not have been able to otherwise access."
The Department of Education is reported to be piloting a program that would allow students to use Pell Grants to attend coding bootcamps. The White House and Department of Education convened a forum last Thursday to promote innovation and quality in higher education, where the initiative was discussed. Hack Reactor was represented by its CEO, Anthony Phillips, as an honorary guest to discuss ways to make student financing easier.
"Hack Reactor was one of the only major players in the bootcamp space to offer in-house tuition deferral and remote scholarships," said Hack Reactor CEO Anthony Phillips. "By doing this, we would absorb all the tuition costs associated with financing students through the program. We have always been committed to investing as much as necessary to help people through our program based on their financial needs, but now with private loans coming, we can step out of being a finance company and can depend on our resources to fund our students. By teaming up with Pave and Affirm, we have the opportunity to be completely need-blind in our enrollment."
According to data analyzed by the College Board, average single-year tuition and fees for the 2014-2015 academic year was $31,231 for private four-year, $9,139 for an in-state public four-year and $22,958 for an out of state public four-year, for an average cost slightly above $21,000 — $84,000 total over four years. Graduates typically do a federal loan standard repayment schedule of 10-25 years to pay off these tuition debts. By attending a coding bootcamp like Hack Reactor, students pay under $20,000 total, with flexible payment options ranging from 12-36 months. It's a quicker and less burdensome financial commitment.
About Hack Reactor
Hack Reactor's mission is two-fold: to empower people and to transform education through rapid-iteration teaching. Hack Reactor designs and conducts advanced immersion education programs that train students 11 hours per day, 6 days a week, over 12 weeks. Our curriculum cultivates mastery of computer science fundamentals and the JavaScript programming language. The Hack Reactor network of technology schools educates more software engineers every year than Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology, combined. Hack Reactor maintains a 99% employment rate and a median graduate salary of $110,000. Alumni work in a variety of mid- to senior-level engineering roles at industry leaders like Google, Adobe, LinkedIn, Uber and Amazon, as well as at several growing technology companies. For more information, visit: www.hackreactor.com.