Skills Fund announced Wednesday it has raised $11.5 million in seed capital to issue loans to students in coding programing bootcamps.
The Austin-based startup partners with Dev Bootcamp, Metis, Galvanize, Hackbright Academy, CodeU and Sabio. Skill Fund’s goal is to train students to fill millions of high-paying, unfilled tech jobs in the U.S.
“The only way to guarantee successful student outcomes is for all stakeholders – lenders, accelerated learning programs, and quality assurance entities – to share in the risk when students invest their time and money in education,” Rick O’Donnell, founder and CEO of Skills Fund, said in a news release. “By only partnering with bootcamps on whom we’ve performed due diligence on their quality and outcomes, providing students full transparency in annual percentage rate of their loan before applying, and tying all stakeholder’s financial success to that of students, Skills Fund is supporting a revolution of higher education quality and student loans.”
O’Donnell previously served as chief of consumer protection agencies in Colorado and as its former secretary of higher education. He currently serves on the federal advisory committee overseeing college accreditation agencies.
Iowa Student Loan provided the funding.
“We’re excited for the opportunities this alliance with Skills Fund will create for software engineers,” Steve McCullough, Iowa Student Loan president and CEO said in a news statement. “By ensuring access to funding for accelerated learning programs we’re helping boost their earnings potential and fill high-need jobs, benefitting economic growth.”
Partner accelerated learning programs are located throughout the United States, and are focused on promoting access for a diversity of students.