Dive Brief:

• Google’s director of education and university relations says coding schools don’t necessarily produce the types of graduates immediately employable by her company, Bloomberg reports.
• "Our experience has found that most graduates from these programs are not quite prepared for software engineering roles at Google without additional training or previous programming roles in the industry," Maggie Johnson, Google’s director of education and university relations, told Bloomberg.
• Without regulation, some bootcamps can tout results they do not provide. Last month, the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education, which oversees coding schools in California, shut down coding bootcamp Coding House after a number of complaints and violations. Mark Dinan, a recruiter who works with Bay Area technology companies, told Bloomberg some companies he works with "automatically disqualify coding school grads."

Dive Insight:

Coding bootcamps may not be the answer to the U.S. tech talent gap after all. Some bootcamps can also be very expensive. Another part of the problem is a lack of regulation, resulting in some bootcamps that don’t deliver what they promise.

Interest in such programs is on the rise as people look to cash in on lucrative IT careers. In September 2015, a LinkedIn researcher reported that enrollment in coding boot camps was hitting record numbers.

While there are certainly coding bootcamps that do a good job educating students and delivering on their promises, it pays to fully vet a bootcamp before investing. Coding educations also need to go beyond the bounds of an in-depth classroom experience. Though they may start off educating students on how to code, they aren't necessarily the answer to the widening tech talent gap.