The institute, founded in 2016, advertises itself as a "project-based alternative to college". It has now landed in legal trouble for aggressively probing students under its Income Share Agreements (ISAs)-based fee payment plan. ISAs are a substitute for student loans that allow alumni to submit 17 percent of their pre-tax salaries for 42 months as tuition fees after they graduate from the Holberton School.
Holberton School received a legal notice from the California,US-based Bureau for Private Post-secondary Education (BPPE) on Friday (24 January) on charges of posing an "immediate danger" to the health and welfare of its students and failing to comply with "minimum institutional operating status". The Bureau has asked the institute to suspend admissions and fee collection, the media reported on Wednesday.
Eventually, the total tuition fee Holberton School extracted from coding-enthusiasts under its ISAs equalled a whopping $85,000. One of the clauses of the institute's ISAs states that if a Holberton student fails to earn a minimum of $3,333 per month, the individual's ISAs would be subjected to "postponement" in fee-submission.
The notice sent to the coding school by BPPE alleges that the institute went ahead and incorporated ISAs as part of its fee structure option despite approval for it being "contingent" otherwise.
In addition, BPPE officials accused the Holberton School of indulging in unethical business practices like committing fraud to get operational and enrolment approvals in July 2018.
Holberton Co-Founder and CEO Julien Barbier informed the students of the institute's San Francisco campus about the legal notice and indefinite termination of admissions and fee acceptance procedures.
Meanwhile, Priyanka, who was busy at the Grammy's music awards, where she was decked out in a plunging kimono dress alongside hubby Nick Jonas, has not commented on the Holberton School case yet.
