White-Label Bootcamps: Branding and Opinions

Coding bootcamps have become a common education option within the United States. Two organizations, Fullstack Academy and EdX, have each developed a white-label bootcamp program marketed through partnering universities. Because these bootcamps offer their services under the name of their university partners, the public likely misunderstands the nature of the bootcamps, mistaking them as university programs. We conducted a study to gather public opinion, identifying whether these misunderstandings exist, and if they have created biases based on university rankings. Our study also sought to identify whether there is public bias favoring university-affiliated coding bootcamps over traditional coding bootcamps. We find that most individuals rank these program offerings as equal. However, a portion of bootcamp participants revealed a preference for higher-ranked universities over lower-ranked universities, even when the white-label bootcamp was the same for both. A similar portion of the general population displayed a preference for university-affiliated bootcamps over traditional bootcamps.