CFPB Says For-Profit Coding School Hid Charges, Job Placements

A for-profit coding academy tricked students into enrolling by hiding the true cost of income-share agreements and inflating job placement rates, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said.

BloomTech Inc., a coding boot camp also known as the Bloom Institute of Technology, provided false information to prospective students indicating that income-share agreements intended to cover the costs of their six- to nine-month training programs weren’t loans, the CFPB said in a Wednesday enforcement action. In fact, the agreements, which since 2017 have allowed BloomTech to collect up to $30,000 directly from students’ paychecks, were loans that carried $4,000 finance charges, the ...