Help 10 Veterans Complete The Transition To Tech

Help us provide cost-of-living support to 10 veterans who were enrolled at Nashville Software School and suddenly lost their ability to use their educational entitlements (e.g. the GI BillⓇ) at NSS. NSS’s approval to enroll veterans was revoked without warning or due process at the end of August. After a week of asking for reconsideration, we were informed that these 10 veterans that were already accepted into classes starting between September 7 and October 2 would not be able to use their earned benefits. There has also been no adequate explanation to why our approval was revoked beyond the fact that there’s a new administration in Washington D.C. and they are looking at things “differently”.

 

How You Can Help!

In losing their entitlement these students lost not only their tuition reimbursement, but also their monthly housing allowance. For a full-time student living in the Nashville area, the housing allowance (or cost-of-living stipend) is around $2000/month (less for a part-time student). NSS was able to help with their tuition through a combination of scholarships and a modified version of NSS' Opportunity Tuition, our deferred tuition plan. As a result, 7 of the 10 students are still able to enroll in their original bootcamp (more on that below). While we were still wrestling with how to help support their cost-of-living, something unexpected happened. A number of NSS graduates, who are veterans, asked for a way to financially help their fellow veterans.

 

For this reason, we’re launching this GoFundMe to give the community a way to support the cost of living needs of these veterans while they are enrolled at NSS. The 10 veterans impacted by this arbitrary revocation of our approval will be able to request support from this fund until they graduate or the fund has been exhausted. To cover the cost-of-living stipend for all 10 students, it would cost approximately $107,000. If support from the community exceeds the needs of these 10 students or should they choose not utilize the full fund, the remainder of the fund will be used towards scholarships and cost-of-living expenses for more veterans to attend NSS.

 

More Background on NSS' Commitment To These Veterans

We at NSS committed to do everything we could to help these veterans get the training they applied for. In each case, we knew we had to address two challenges: a) the student’s tuition, which was no longer going to be paid using their entitlement, and b) their cost-of-living allowance (i.e. known as a housing allowance). Many veterans, in particular full-time students, count on the housing allowance to support themselves, and in many cases their family. Even if they get free tuition, they have to have some way to pay rent, buy food, and for other living expenses.

 

We have a great deal of flexibility in dealing with tuition expenses, but as a bootstrapped non-profit, NSS simply does not have the financial resources to allocate something on the order of $107,000 towards living expenses for these ten students, especially since the VA’s decision cost us around $109,000 in tuition revenue. We fully expected that living expenses would be the hardest issue, and it has proved to be so.

 

At this point, seven of the ten students will still be attending NSS as scheduled through a combination of scholarships and a modified version of NSS' Opportunity Tuition, our deferred tuition plan. Our goal was to remove the need to pay anything to the school before graduation so the student could use any available financial resources to cover the cost of living during class. All seven veterans attending received one of those two options - the three veterans who were not able to attend on schedule due to losing their cost-of-living support have the ability anytime in the next twelve months to get the same deal from NSS. If we can raise enough funding to cover their cost-of-living allowance, that may enable the three students who had to delay to start their career transition at an earlier date.

 

A Proven Program - NSS' Track Record With Veterans

NSS has a solid track record of graduation and employment outcomes for our veteran students. Our records indicate that out of 125 VA students enrolled at NSS, 16 are still enrolled in class, leaving 109 that are out of their programs. Of those 109, 97 (88.9%) successfully completed their program. Of the 97 graduates, 76% were successfully placed in the tech field using the skills they acquired at NSS while another 6% have only recently graduated (within the last 90 days) and are still in their job search. The average starting salary of our VA graduates placed in the tech field over the past five years is $56,828.

 

About NSS

Started in 2012, Nashville Software School was the nation’s first non-profit software bootcamp. Our mission is to prepare adults with motivation and aptitude for careers in tech. NSS is committed to creating opportunities to access high-paying tech careers for individuals who are financially disadvantaged or are from groups underrepresented in tech careers. There are currently 1,600 alumni of NSS and approximately 275 students currently enrolled.