Lambda School’s Growing Pains: Big Buzz, Student Complaints

Silicon Valley has no shortage of companies promising to disrupt higher education with technology. The buzziest of them all may be Lambda School, a company that provides free coding courses in exchange for a cut of its students’ future incomes.

The online school has won a following among high-profile investors, who see Lambda as a way to help train a new generation of talent for the programmer-hungry tech industry. Several venture capitalists told The Information that they’ve held conversations with Lambda in recent months about a new round of funding for the company at a lofty $1 billion valuation, a big jump from the $150 million it was valued at during an earlier funding round last year, though Lambda says it has no immediate plans to raise money.