Coding

Boot Camp Opens Scholarship Programs to Widen Student Diversity

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 03/10/20

Boot camp provider Flatiron School has introduced a scholarship program intended to draw in more students from under-represented groups. According to the company, it expects 35 to 50 applicants each month to receive one of the new "Access Scholarships," as they're called.

Recipients will receive $3,000 toward tuition. Tuition for Flatiron varies based on where the campus is and which program the student is attending. Most programs in most locations are $15,000, the company said. Those in San Francisco and New York, however, are slightly higher.

To qualify for the new scholarship, applicants must meet at least one of two qualifications:

• They have a household income below their area's median income; for Houston or Atlanta, for example, that's $33,000; or
• They must be part of an under-represented group in technology; that includes applicants who are women, who belong to a racial/ethnic minority, who have disabilities, who are a member of the LGBTQ+ community or who are veterans.

Students will have all the standard options for covering the rest of tuition, including choosing to defer tuition costs, whereby they can put off paying the rest of their tuition until they're employed after graduation.

The new program arrives on the heels of another initiative designed to draw in a diverse set of students. Flatiron has entered a partnership with the Cognizant U.S. Foundation, a nonprofit foundation that supports STEM education and skills training. The two organizations have launched the NexTech 100 scholarship, which will award $1.2 million to a group of 100 students from either a high-need or underrepresented background, to cover full scholarships to the boot camp.

Applicants can learn more about the NexTech scholarship or the Access scholarship on the Flatiron School website.