It isn't education.

Take a look at the curriculum of any bootcamp. And you'll find that every piece of content they provide is out there online—for free.

Let's use JavaScript as an example. A Google search for "free JavaScript courses" will give you hundreds...maybe thousands of courses to choose from. Can bootcamps really create JavaScript content that this army of free courses don't have? Probably not.

Bootcamps' contents are 99% rehashes of free existing content. Yet they easily cost more than $10,000. It seems insane to pay bootcamps thousands of dollars to teach content that's available for free.

So why do bootcamps still exist? There are 3 reasons:

Curation

Free resources are perfectly suited for learning, but they are poorly organized. To self-learn data science without a bootcamp, I'll need to cobble together resources from freeCodeCamp, Kaggle, random Medium article, Udemy courses...you get the idea. Self-learning is like piecing together bits of information across the internet to form a comprehensive learning plan.

Not everyone has the time and energy to create their own curriculum—and bootcamps leverage on this. They curate existing content into a neatly, crafted curriculum. So the truth is—coding bootcamps' education service is more about packaging than creating good content.

Accountability

MOOCs have a completion rate of 3%.

Why? Because they have no accountability mechanism.

Completing a MOOC is a lonely journey—there's no one to help you when you're stuck. No one to encourage you when you feel like giving up. No one to push you to get your shit together. Frankly, it's easier to give up on MOOCs than to continue till the end.

Bootcamps, on the other hand, have a completion rate of 92%. And it's because they keep their students accountable in 3 ways.

• Instructors - Providing a "human touch" to a beginner's education is incredibly helpful. Sometimes, all we need is a little push once in a while to keep going. Instructors fulfil this role in bootcamps.
• Community - Bootcamps connects one with other students on the same journey as them. In high school and college, we were more motivated when our friends were working, and less so when our friend weren't. Bootcamps cultivate the same environment for you.
• Price - Bootcamp students pay thousands of dollars upfront (generally), and this sunken cost pushes them to work harder and get their money's worth.

Interestingly, 2 out of 3 accountability mechanisms (i.e. Community and Price) are created by students themselves. Bootcamps are simply the "organizer".

Employment Advantages

Most beginners don't join bootcamps simply for the fun of coding. Often, it is a financial decision.

"I will join a 6 months long bootcamp to learn web development. And in 1 year, I will land a junior role and earn 25% more than what I currently do."

Bootcamps are tailored for this purpose.

Well-established bootcamps have ties with tech companies. It ensures the credibility of their certification, unlike...cough Udemy cough. A network of recruiters will certainly make job placements easier.

Some bootcamps make employment front and center of their business. Lambda School only takes payment once a student has landed a job, aligning the incentives of both students and bootcamp. More and more bootcamps are taking a similar approach.

Free online resources provide great content, but little to no help in seeking employment.

TL;DR

Bootcamps justify their price tag through content curation, accountability mechanisms and employment advantages. Notice how none of this has anything to do with education itself, which makes sense because good content is often available for free anyways.

This begs the question: How might we deliver the same value as bootcamps without costing thousands of dollars?