Insight’s tuition-free model now includes living expense loansInsight and Skills Fund partner to lower the barrier to thriving careersInsight DataBlockedUnblockFollowFollowingJan 16In addition to providing completely tuition-free programs, need-based scholarships, and cloud computing resources, the Insight Fellowship Program is now offering cost-of-living loans to Fellows in all of our programs through a partnership with Skills Fund.
These loans are offered through Skills Fund’s honest and upfront financing, and are financially backed by Insight to support our Fellows during their career transition.
A growing divide: degrees vs.
demandFor several decades, there has been a growing gap between higher education and the industry.
While the cost of a degree has continued to rise, the link between education and in-demand careers has weakened.
Today’s graduates are no longer guaranteed secure and stable access to a thriving career — they’re facing the reality that the strong foundation they gain at universities is no longer enough.
The best jobs require cutting-edge skills and experience with new technologies that go beyond the fundamentals taught in the classroom.
The cost of education has outpaced other expenses, while graduates are finding that their degrees don’t automatically translate into job security.
(Sources — Left: The Economist: Higher Education — Not what it used to be, Right: New York Times: Where the STEM Jobs Are (and Where They Aren’t)This shift hasn’t come from a change in our educational institutions, but from the rapid development of technology.
Recent advances like machine learning, cloud infrastructure, and automation are radically changing the industry.
Indeed, this isn’t just an issue for recent graduates — large segments of working professionals are finding that their current role doesn’t give them the opportunity to learn the latest skills needed to advance their careers.
There is a growing gap between the skills needed for a thriving career and what people are learning in their classrooms and offices.
Faced with this reality, many seek out opportunities to learn skills that go beyond their day-to-day work.
Grad students add extra-curricular courses to their schedules, and pursue internships to gain exposure to one or two teams in the industry.
Professionals invest hours on nights and weekends to level up, effectively working overtime to ensure their skills don’t stagnate.
They join meetups to collaborate and share knowledge on the latest developments.
These ambitious learners dedicate time and energy to improve their skills, and it pays off as they earn rewarding roles in exciting fields.
But many more struggle with this approach and are left behind.
This learning style often involves working alone in spare hours, without the ability to focus on in-depth problems and concepts.
The latest technologies outpace the available educational resources, so those without access to a network of peers miss out on the informal training and mentoring that drives the field forward.
There has been a Cambrian explosion of new technologies and skills that top teams use, but educational resources on the latest tools often lag behind the experience needed for the industry.
Finances also create an artificial barrier and distract from this difficult transition.
Students typically emerge from their studies with significant debt and little savings.
It’s difficult for working professionals to find the time to level up their skills, especially if they’re supporting families.
Highly-educated people who have already paid for tuition are finding that they need to borrow against credit cards or sacrifice their rainy-day funds to land the role they want.
This is exacerbated by the fact that the cost of living is higher in many of the cities where top teams are located.
As a result, millions of dedicated and smart people aren’t realizing their full potential.
Too many of our brightest won’t overcome these barriers, and the shortage of talent will continue to be a bottleneck in the industry.
In the best case, these promising individuals will get entry-level roles, hoping for projects that will provide the necessary experience in emerging technologies.
Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee that they won’t get stuck in the day-to-day, with their dream careers just out of reach.
But we believe in a better future for education.
People have incredible potential, and everyone deserves a chance to improve themselves.
If you have the fundamental skills and a commitment to put in the hard work, you should have clear access to education that is relevant to leading roles.
The only barrier to advancing your career should be the dedication and persistence to do impactful work.
At Insight, we believe that smart, ambitious, creative, diverse and positive people should all have the opportunity to do impactful work, and access to thriving careers.
Making this belief a reality at InsightIn 2012, Insight created a new model for professional education to bridge this gap.
We provide a collaborative learning space for our Fellows to do impactful work that leads to thriving careers.
Rather than focusing on lectures and textbooks to cover fundamentals, Fellows learn by building industry-quality products and solving real-world problems.
We bring together a community of industry advisors and alumni to provide the mentorship on the cutting-edge technologies that are driving the field.
By meeting dozens of top teams throughout the program, Fellows learn exactly what the industry needs, and develop the skills needed to earn advanced roles in a few weeks instead of a few years.
Most importantly, Fellows learn from their peers — an incredible network of professionals from a diverse set of backgrounds making the same transition.
We’re committed to building a network of those with the greatest potential by looking beyond resumes, educational background, or the ability to solve puzzles on a whiteboard.
Anyone with the fundamental skills and dedication can become a successful Fellow at Insight.
And that promise extends to those with limited resources — we strive to ensure that finances never prevent a Fellow from being successful.
We partner with top teams in the industry to sponsor tuition for every Fellow in our program.
Insight has always been, and will continue to be, completely tuition-free for every Fellow.
Additionally, we are now adding more options for Fellows to cover cost-of-living expenses while completing the program.
Beyond our tuition-free model, we offer need-based scholarships to help cover expenses like transportation and housing.
We also provide Fellows with free access to cloud computing resources so they can build using the same production-quality systems used in the industry.
These resources allow our Fellows to immerse themselves in the relevant communities and technologies, free of financial distractions.
We’re truly committed to supporting our Fellows — we have provided over $1 million in need-based scholarships and $500K in cloud computing resources over and above our free tuition since Insight started in 2012.
Our core value is that we put Fellows first —we always do what’s best for our Fellows in the long term.
For this reason, we’ll continue supporting our Fellows through these important initiatives.
Optimizing opportunities with Skills FundBut we’d like to do more to help our Fellows.
The Insight program is an intense 7 weeks where Fellows do impactful work and learn best practices from the industry.
While we support every Fellow throughout this process, we never want living expenses to distract Fellows from their work.
Our educational model and scholarships make the transition into thriving careers possible for our Fellows, but we want to optimize the Fellow experience to allow everyone to get the most out of our program.
So we’ve searched for a partner to offer cost of living loans to further help our Fellows.
Fortunately, we’ve found that partner in Skills Fund.
Their founders, Rick O’Donnell and Joseph Kozusko, left academia to raise the bar for educational quality and help protect students from unfair debt.
Their entire team is dedicated to putting students first and fixing the broken educational loan system.
They believe in helping people achieve their highest level of success, and Skills Fund aligns its outcome with this mission.
*The Annual Percentage Rate (APR) shown in the loan calculator factors in the 4% origination fee and assumes the maximum repayment length of 36 months.
The actual APR may be lower than the example provided based on the repayment time.
For more details, check out Skills Fund’s blog on how APR is calculated.
Through our partnership with Skills Fund, Fellows can apply to borrow up to $5,000 to cover the cost of living during Insight.
Every Fellow who is approved* for a loan will get the same honest and upfront interest rate of 9.
49% (or about 12.
2% APR), regardless of their current income, employment history, or credit score.
With a maximum loan of $5,000, the monthly payments would be $166.
55.
Fellows can even opt to add co-signers for their loan.
Skills Fund brings modern service to educational loans.
The application and decision can be completed in minutes, and the whole process (from application to payments) can be set up online.
Finally, Skills Fund is committed to integrity and they follow the best practices for servicing loans, approved by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Since our program is provided tuition-free through our industry partners, Insight doesn’t benefit financially from offering these loans.
In fact, we subsidize them by financially backing every loan and sharing the risk with Skills Fund.
This creates the aligned outcomes that Skills Fund and Insight believe in — we only succeed when our Fellows are successful and start thriving careers.
Insight is helping provide cost of living loans because we believe they will help our Fellows optimize their experience at Insight.
Helping our Fellows into thriving careersUltimately, all of our partnerships and initiatives have one goal — the long-term success of our Fellows.
We’ve helped more than 1,800 Fellows start thriving careers at over 700 top teams.
Over 96% of our Fellows join relevant roles within six months of joining the program, and we continue helping every Fellow until they find a good fit.
This success has enabled us to expand to seven unique programs available in five cities across the U.
S.
and Canada, as well as a remote program for other locations.
Over 1800 Insight Fellows have started thriving careers at over 700 top teams in the industry.
And their success continues well beyond the 7 weeks of our program.
The same strong drive and collaboration that makes our Fellows successful in our program helps them become leaders in their fields.
Our Fellows lead teams at industry pioneers like Amazon, Apple, Bloomberg, Capital One, CVS, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Lyft, Microsoft, Netflix, Pinterest, Spotify, Stitch Fix, Tamr, Twitch, Twitter, The New York Times, Uber, Wayfair, and Yelp.
Our Fellows also lead teams at hundreds of high-growth startups, and several alumni have gone on to start their own innovative startups.
The most rewarding part of our program, and the reason Insight exists, is the experience we provide for our Fellows.
We’re incredibly excited to continue helping our Fellows transition to thriving careers with a growing number of financial aid options, building on top of our tuition-free educational model.
Interested in transitioning to a thriving career?.Learn more about the Insight Fellows Program and start your application today.
Learn more about the Insight Fellow experience from 50 alums who have started thriving careers at top teams.
* While Insight offers all of our other financial aid options to all Fellows, Skills Fund can only offer financing to US citizens or Permanent Residents.
.