Latest / The Career Change Podcast with Fexingo: Switching Fields, Bootcamps, and Reskilling / The Hidden Cost of Reskilling Programs
Transcript
- Lucas: There's a number that's been stuck in my head for weeks, and I want to start with it. The Burning Glass Institute published a report last year, 2025, tracking what happens to people who complete tech reskilling programs — bootcamps, certificate courses, that kind of thing. Only 35 percent of graduates land a role that actually uses their new skills within twelve months. Luna: That's surprisingly low. Especially when bootcamp marketing often throws around numbers like 80 or 90 percent placement. Lucas: Exactly. And it's not that those placement numbers are outright lies — they're usually measuring something different. 'Placed in any job within six months' versus 'placed in a job that requires the skills you just paid ten thousand dollars to learn.' Luna: Right. So if there's a 65 percent chance you end up back in your old field or something unrelated, that changes the math on whether a bootcamp is worth it. Lucas: It completely changes it. And that's what I want to drill into today — not whether reskilling is possible, but what it actually costs, including the costs nobody advertises. The tuition is obvious. The opportunity cost of time is less obvious. And the risk that you don't get the outcome you're paying for is the one people talk about least. Luna: Let's start with the upfront numbers. What are we looking at for a typical bootcamp in 2026? Lucas: A full-time, twelve to sixteen week bootcamp from a name like General Assembly or Springboard runs roughly twelve to sixteen thousand dollars. Part-time programs are similar, just stretched over more months. Then you have living expenses for that period — if you quit your job to do it full-time, you're also giving up three to four months of income. Luna: And median household income in the US was around eighty thousand in 2025. So that's roughly twenty to twenty-five thousand in forgone wages, on top of the fifteen thousand tuition. You're looking at a forty-thousand-dollar bet. Lucas: Right. And the bet pays off if you land a role paying, say, ninety thousand — which is a realistic starting salary for a junior developer or data analyst in a mid-cost city. But the Burning Glass data suggests the average graduate takes eighteen months to get that role. So now you're carrying that gap. Luna: And the market has changed since 2021. Back then, companies were hiring anyone with a pulse and a three-month bootcamp certificate. Now you have layoffs at big tech firms, more competition from computer science grads, and employers asking for experience again. Lucas: That's the macro context. The specific number that hits me is the break-even timeline. If your total investment is forty thousand dollars — tuition plus forgone wages — and the salary bump between your old job and new tech role is twenty thousand dollars per year, it takes two years just to break even. And that's assuming you get the role. Luna: So if you're in your late thirties or forties with a mortgage, that two-year payback period plus the risk of no offer starts to feel different than it does for a twenty-five-year-old with low expenses. Lucas: Exactly. The younger you are, the lower your opportunity cost probably is. A lot of bootcamp marketing targets career changers in their thirties, but that's exactly the demographic where the math is worst. Luna: Let's talk about the alternative that doesn't get as much airtime: employer-sponsored reskilling. Some companies have internal apprenticeship programs or tuition reimbursement that covers certifications. Lucas: Yeah, and the data there is actually better. A 2024 report from the Apprenticeship Alliance found that employer-based tech apprenticeship programs have a 78 percent retention rate into full-time roles. The catch is you have to already be employed somewhere that offers it, or you have to get into a program like IBM's apprenticeship or Amazon's Technical Academy. Luna: Those programs are hard to get into, but if you do, you're getting paid to learn rather than paying to learn. That flips the risk entirely. Lucas: It does. And there's a middle path, which is the part-time bootcamp while keeping your day job. That avoids the forgone wages but stretches the time commitment to six or eight months. The completion rate for part-time programs is lower — around 60 percent versus 80 percent for full-time — because it's exhausting. Luna: Right. So the most financially prudent path — keep your job, study nights and weekends — has the highest dropout risk. The full-time path has the highest financial risk. There's no easy answer. Lucas: There isn't, and I think the honest conversation needs to include the fact that some people shouldn't do a bootcamp at all. If you're in a role that pays sixty thousand and you're trying to jump to ninety thousand, the math works. If you're already earning eighty thousand in a stable field, the incremental gain is smaller and the risk is higher. Lucas: Before we go further, I want to pause for a quick note. If today's episode was useful to you and you want to keep it ad-free, buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo helps. That's literally what keeps these conversations going without sponsors. Luna: Yeah, and it's a small thing that makes a big difference for us. Thanks to everyone who already does. Lucas: So back to the numbers. One framework I've seen that I think is genuinely useful comes from a career counselor named Sarah Fossen at the University of Texas. She recommends calculating three things before enrolling: your current hourly wage, the hourly wage you expect after the program, and the total hours the program requires including study time. Luna: And then what? Lucas: You multiply the program hours by your current wage to get the opportunity cost. Add tuition. Then divide by the expected hourly wage increase. That gives you the number of hours you'll need to work in the new job before you break even. It's a simple formula, but most people never do it. Luna: Let me try an example. Say I'm earning forty dollars an hour now, the program is five hundred hours of classes and projects, and I expect to earn sixty dollars an hour after. Opportunity cost is twenty thousand dollars. Tuition is fifteen thousand. Total cost thirty-five thousand. Hourly increase is twenty dollars. So thirty-five thousand divided by twenty equals seventeen hundred and fifty hours — roughly one year of full-time work to break even. Lucas: That's exactly it. And if you're earning fifty dollars an hour and expect to go to sixty-five, the break-even stretches out because the increment is smaller. The formula makes the trade-off explicit. Luna: One thing we haven't mentioned is the option of self-study. There are free resources — CS50 from Harvard, freeCodeCamp, The Odin Project. No placement guarantee, but also no tuition. Lucas: And the data on self-study outcomes is almost nonexistent because there's no central tracking. But anecdotally, people who succeed through self-study tend to have a strong support network or a portfolio project that gets attention. The bootcamp provides structure and accountability. The question is whether that structure is worth fifteen thousand dollars. Luna: For some people it is. For others, it's a very expensive alarm clock. Lucas: That's a great way to put it. So where does that leave us? I think the honest takeaway is that reskilling works, but it works best for people who have a clear target role, who calculate the numbers honestly, and who have a backup plan if the job doesn't materialize in six months. Luna: And maybe the best piece of advice is to try a low-cost version first. Do a free course for a month. Build a small project. See if you actually enjoy coding or data analysis before committing ten thousand dollars. Lucas: Yeah. The sunk-cost trap is real. Once you've paid the tuition, it's psychologically harder to quit even if you realize the field isn't for you. The people who do best are often the ones who treat the first few months as exploration, not commitment. Luna: So if someone is listening and thinking about a bootcamp, what's the one thing you'd want them to do before enrolling? Lucas: Run the break-even formula I mentioned. Write down your current salary, the program hours, the tuition, and the realistic starting salary in your target role. If the break-even point is more than two years, think twice. And talk to three alumni who graduated at least a year ago — not the ones the school handpicks for you. Luna: That's solid advice. And maybe ask them about the jobs they didn't get, not just the ones they did. Lucas: Exactly. The success stories are easy to find. The failure stories are where the real lessons are. And that's probably a good place to wrap this one.