When we first started Rithm in 2016, we made a bet. We believed that there would be people willing to pay a bit more for an immersive coding program that placed the quality of the education and student experience first.
Two years later, we’ve proven that you can build a successful program that focuses on small class sizes and experienced instructors. Our graduates have gone on to work at top-tier companies like Pinterest and Palantir. 74% of our graduates find work within 90 days, and with a median salary of $110,000 (details here).
But there are still challenges. To date, our biggest difficulty has been making the program as affordable as possible without sacrificing quality. Our pricing has always been $24,000, which unfortunately has made our program inaccessible to many potential students. That’s why we’re excited to announce that starting with our first class next year, we’ll be adding a deferred tuition option. This means that you won’t have to pay any tuition until you find a job as an engineer.
Deferred Tuition: An Overview
Our current tuition is a flat fee: a non-refundable deposit, plus the remainder due in one or two installments. Historically, students who have had the means have paid everything up front, or have taken out a loan with SkillsFund, our lending partner for tuition.
In contrast, our deferred tuition option offers potential students more flexibility. Here are the highlights:
- We get paid only when you succeed. Once you graduate, you don’t pay us anything until you find a job that pays you at least $60,000 annually.
- Pay back your tuition as a percentage of salary. Once you find a well-paying job, 17% of your pay will go towards your tuition, for a maximum of two years.
- If you find an extremely high-paying job, don’t worry. The maximum you’ll have to pay back is capped at one-and-a-half times the remaining tuition (or $34,500).
- Don’t worry about interest payments. When taking out a loan with our flat-fee option, interest can begin to accrue before you’ve found a job. With our deferred tuition option, how much you pay isn’t affected by how long it takes you to find work.
- We’re decreasing the amount of our deposit from $3,000 to $1,000, regardless of how you decide to pay. This means that our remaining tuition if you pay up front will be $23,000.
- Our flat fee option isn’t going away! If you’d prefer to pay up front, or take out a loan with SkillsFund, you still can.
Is This Right For You?
Offering up a deferred tuition option has been one of the most common requests we’ve received from potential students, so we’re extremely happy that we can finally provide this option. We are committed to making our program as accessible as possible to as many people as possible, and for many people, deferred tuition offers some significant advantages.
The most obvious advantage is that you don’t need to take on a large amount of debt in order to pay for our program. What’s more, once you start paying for your tuition, if you ever lose your job or your pay dips below $60,000, your payments will pause too.
Another important advantage is that for some students, the burden of loan payments adds another layer of stress to an already stressful job search. Not having to worry about accruing interest allows graduates to focus more of their energy on finding the right job for them.
On the other hand, we don’t expect our deferred tuition option to meet the needs of every student. If it makes more sense for you to pay a flat fee, you’re still able to do so.
Learning More
Our deferred tuition option represents one of the biggest changes we’ve made since we started Rithm. As such, we assume people will have lots of questions. We’ve tried to anticipate the most common ones, both at our brand new tuition page and on our updated FAQ.
If you have any other questions, feel free to drop us a note at admissions@rithmschool.com or chat with our Director of Admissions.
We can’t wait to hear from you!
