California's BPPE Office of Student Assistance and Relief records that BloomTech closed on December 31, 2025 with that date as the last day of instruction; on 2026-10-08 the site is still up but the Data Science and Backend pages read 'Enrollment Paused', Full Stack shows 'Join Waitlist', and the footer copyright still says 2023. source
BloomTech's Data Science track was a 960-hour online program with Python, SQL, ML and deep learning, sold with deferred tuition, ISAs and a refund guarantee. It is closed: California regulators record the last day of instruction as December 31, 2025, and the CFPB's 2024 order found the ISAs were misdescribed loans and the placement claims were inflated. If you are a former student, the thing to check is whether your ISA was cancelled under the CFPB order and whether you can claim records or refunds through the BPPE.
The facts
| Category | AI and machine learning, Software engineering |
|---|---|
| Website | bloomtech.com/courses/data-science |
| Based | Remote · founded 2017 |
| Format | online-self-paced, online-live |
| Programs | Data Science, Full Stack Web Development, Backend Development, AI for Developer Productivity (corporate) |
| Length | 26 weeks (Program page: 960 hours across 24 sprints, 6-12 months self-paced with optional live classes; 26 weeks is the low end of the stated range.) verified |
| Tuition | $13,500 to $19,000 Program page (still live, enrollment paused): $13,500 upfront (US) or $12,000 (international); homepage FAQ says deferred tuition totals '$19,000+'; ISA option listed as $2,950 down then 14% of salary for 48 payments once earning $50,000+, not offered in California. Historic ISA described by CFPB: 17% of income for 24 payments or a $30,000 cap. verified |
| Financing | upfront, installments, deferred, isa Program pages: 'Deferred Tuition' with $0 upfront; upfront $13,500 in one payment or three installments; ISA $2,950 down plus 14% of salary for 4 years after earning $50k+/yr ($4,166/month threshold), not available to California residents. '110% Tuition Refund Guarantee': full refund plus 10% if a graduate who follows the job search program gets no offer paying at least $50,000 within one year of graduation, terms apply. Note the April 17, 2024 CFPB order permanently bans BloomTech from consumer-lending activities, so new ISAs cannot lawfully be issued (consumerfinance.gov enforcement page). |
| Admission | open Data Science page lists no technical bar: applicants should have researched the field and have a computer, wifi and workspace; a free trial was offered. |
| Stack | Python, SQL, databases, data visualization, linear algebra, statistics, machine learning, deep learning, ML ops, computer vision, NLP |
Outcomes
Placement: 86% job placement rate in 2022 for job-seeking grads. Median salary: $37,000+ median salary increase for placed 2022 graduates. Reporting period: 2022. reported source
Interview-prep depth
1 / 5
Public Data Science page lists interview preparation and coaching as services but gives no hours, no DS&A module and no system design; score reflects a thin, unquantified career-services layer on a program that no longer runs.
Job support: structured. Data Science page lists 1:1 career and technical coaching, personalized job sourcing, outreach generation, interview preparation and negotiation support from enrollment until job acceptance. Wikipedia reports the December 2023 layoff removed all full-time instructors; the program is now closed, so none of this is available.
Whatever the program covers, the interview itself is free to prepare for here: coding patterns, system design, practice prompts, company guides.
What a careful reader should know
CFPB consent order, April 17, 2024 (2024-CFPB-0001): BloomTech marketed income share agreements as 'not loans' with 'no finance charge' when they were consumer loans carrying an average finance charge of about $4,000; it advertised 71-86% job placement while internal metrics showed closer to 50% and in some cases as low as 30%. Penalties: $64,235 against BloomTech and $100,000 against CEO Austen Allred, both to the victims relief fund; BloomTech permanently banned from consumer-lending activities; Allred banned from student-lending activities for 10 years; ISAs rescinded for graduates without a qualifying job in the past year, finance charges eliminated for graduates past 18 months earning $70,000 or less, current students allowed to withdraw and cancel ISAs. California: in March 2019 the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education fined the school $75,000 and ordered it to stop operating without approval; it kept operating and was approved in August 2020 after agreeing to stop ISAs in California; in April 2021 the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation settled over misrepresenting whether student contracts were debt (Wikipedia). Lawsuits: three former students sued in May 2021, another suit naming Allred in April 2022, a class action in March 2023 (Wikipedia). Layoffs: April 2020 (19), April 2021 (65), December 2022 (88, half the company), December 2023 (half of remaining staff and all full-time instructors); Class Central's April 22, 2024 article describes that latest halving as four months earlier. Rebranded from Lambda School to BloomTech in late 2021/2022. In late 2024 Allred launched Gauntlet AI, a free Austin-based AI training program that r/codingbootcamp threads describe as run through the BloomTech entity; a Hacker News thread cites a claim that 70% of cohort 1 lost their job within 7 months (unverified). The BPPE closure notice (last day of instruction December 31, 2025) directs former students to request transcripts and consider Student Tuition Recovery Fund claims. The 86% placement and $37,000 salary-increase figures still on the homepage are the company's own 2022 numbers and are contradicted by the CFPB findings.
Third-party signals: Course Report 4.28 (129 reviews). Reddit sentiment negative. Graduation-time star ratings are collected by the schools; weigh them accordingly.
Sources (12)
- consumerfinance.gov/enforcement/actions/bloomtech-inc-and-austen-allred/
- consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-takes-action-against-coding-boot-camp-bloomtech-and-ceo-austen-allred-for-deceiving-students-and-hiding-loan-costs/
- files-prod.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_bloomtech-inc-consent-order_2024-04.pdf
- osar.bppe.ca.gov/closures/informational_bloom.shtml
- bloomtech.com/courses/data-science
- bloomtech.com/courses/full-stack-web-development
- bloomtech.com/courses/backend-development
- bloomtech.com/
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_Institute_of_Technology
- classcentral.com/report/bloomtech-downfall/
- coursereport.com/schools/bloomtech
- e-student.org/lambda-school-review/
This directory takes no lead fees or placement payments from any program. Where a program runs an affiliate scheme we say so on its page and mark the link. Facts carry a badge: verified means we read it on a primary source on the date shown, reported means a third party said it, unknown means nobody we trust has published it.
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