Monday, June 06, 2005

Earn Money (for someone else) While You Earn Your (useless) Diploma

You need experience to get work. You need work to get experience. How do you get around this Catch-22? Work experience.
One web design company doubles as a school. They bring in students, train them and give them practical projects to work on. Great concept. Given the expense of web design, a company could really benefit from having a bunch of students work on their site. But, wait: there's a catch. This studio charges as much for web designs as anyone else. And, they charge students. They really charge students:




Web Design Certification (WDC) 11 weeks $6300.00 Register
Web Application Programming Certification (WAPE) 11 weeks $6300.00 Register
Web Developer Certificate 22 weeks $13,200.00!!! Register
Interactive 3D Web Certification -New! 11 weeks $6300.00 Register
Interactive Multimedia Design Certification -New! 11 weeks $6300.00 Register
Web Design Fast Track 4 weeks $2600.00 Register
ESL Web Design Certification 15 weeks $7300.00 Register


Do the math. An eleven week program for $6300. Given them five weeks to ramp up and train them to develop "smart, turn key solutions" (read: cookie cutter). If a web design that takes 6 weeks (240 hours) it's like to cost $40-$150 per hour-- $9,600 to 36,000. So, this company turns out a web design for $10,000 to almost $40,000. While another company has to pay their designer $3,600 - $14,400 for their effort. Here's a quick take on the math:


Median Web Design Bill Tuition Web Design Cost Profit
Studio/School $22,000 $6,300 (240 x $0) $0 $28,300
Schmoe Co. $22,000 $0 (240 x $20) $4,800 $17,200
Offshore Inc. $22,000 $0 (240 x $5) $120 $21,880

How would you feel that your designer wasn't a professional but you were getting charged through the nose? How would you feel if your instructor pushed you to do get an "A" so that they could collect a wad money on your work?