Percentage of earnings is just equity. They're different, but not ethically. Slavery would be forcibly taking 100% of an individual's equity, but given that ISAs are both optional and a minor percentage (Lambda's was 18% when I went thru), the comparison is unreasonable.
ISAs are equity in the student's future performance, up to a cap. This can result in paying a huge premium for relatively small amount of effort (a $30k cap for 6 months of online class is comparable to a semester at uni), but with 2 key advantages: a money-back-guarantee and accessibility.
With a fixed-cost tuition program, students who can't afford to pay don't go. This prices out students who would benefit from the program. There is also no recourse if you can't get a job from uni. How do u know if the teachers instructed you properly? Imagine paying $20k for the wrong instruction. Yikes.
The only time an ISA works against the student's favor is when the schools go after students who got a job working in something unrelated (which Lambda appears to have done a lot of) or students who were super successful, because they overpay for the instruction. The latter isn't that bad given the risk-free nature of the ISA, and the former can be resolved with legal action and regulation (which is what's happening).
That's just my $0.02, although I was a Lambda Grad who did the ISA and didn't have any issues.
Another piece of anec-data: I had a non-CS degree coming into Lambda, which definitely helped me during recruitment time. I think that had I gone into a CS program, I would have done fine and possibly even landed a better gig than I got after Lambda, but I didn't want to shell out $50k over 2 years on the chance of that happening, so I was happy to take the ISA. 5 years post-grad, I'm making 4x what I was making pre-Lambda, and my ISA was paid off after 2 years, but as is true with most things: your mileage may vary.
This is a useful bit of knowledge, but to guard against people making irrational judgments about Accenture, it's important to note that (1) It was primarily Anderson's consulting divisions that went to Accenture, and (2) these large auditing firms have offices all over the US and world, and in these types of cases, it was really only a branch or two that were complicit in the fraud.
In the same way that we shouldn't condemn the employees of <INSERT TECH COMPANY> because senior leaders decided to <Censor/Abuse/Manipulate users> we shouldn't condemn otherwise ethical accountants because of the misdeeds of their colleagues - especially when they pass more stringent ethical requirements than developers.
Ironically, people couldn't differentiate the isolated incident, and AA liquidated/sold because no one wanted to do business with them. [0]
36 Republicans in a federal position have been convicted of a crime while in office since 1900. Meanwhile, 48 Democrats have been convicted in the same period. [0]
Working on my CPA certification - 1 more test to go!
Proposing to my girlfriend of 7 years next month.
Quit my public accounting job in March to do a bootcamp - finish up in a month or so.
Complacency is what I felt in my job. I just got promoted in December and was on a pretty easy path to senior, when I realized that I was unfulfilled professionally and that was leading me to waste my personal time trying to find fulfillment. I probably played about 15 hours+ of PvP videogames to try to scratch the competitive itch I have each week. I was a pretty mediocre friend, and a rather uncommitted partner. I quit PvP videogames, started working out 5+ times a week, and committed to being a better partner to my hopeful fiancé.
My only advice as a peer would be to stop optimizing for what is impressive and optimize for what makes you fulfilled. Fulfillment will lead to satisfaction and purpose, which I think will lead to happiness. I've been trying to live by the same advice for the past 4 months - and I've never been happier.