Apple’s application course costs $20,000 per student. Is it really worth it?

Two years ago, Lizmary Fernandez took a detour from her studies as an immigration lawyer to join a free Apple course on starting a business. iPhone apps. The Apple Developer Academy in Detroit was launched as part of the program 200 million dollars in response to Black Lives Matter protests and aims to expand opportunities for people of color in the nation’s poorest big city.

But Fernandez found the program’s cost-of-living stipend was insufficient — “A lot of us went on food stamps,” she said — and the classes were insufficient to land a coding job. “I didn’t have the experience or the portfolio,” says the 25-year-old, who is now a flight attendant and preparing to apply to law school. “Coding isn’t something I’ve come back to.”

As of 2021, the academy has welcomed more than 1,700 students, a racially diverse mix with varying levels of technological knowledge and financial flexibility. About 600 students, including Fernandez, took their 10-month, half-day course at Michigan State University, which co-sponsors the Apple-branded and Apple-focused program.

WIRED reviewed contracts and budgets and spoke with officials and alumni for the first in-depth look at the nearly $30 million invested in the academy over the past four years, nearly 30 percent of which came from Michigan taxpayers and regular university students. As tech giants begin investing billions of dollars in AI-related job training across the country, Apple Academy is offering lessons on the challenges of helping diverse communities thrive.

Measuring success

Seven graduates who spoke with WIRED said they had good experiences at the academy, citing benefits such as mentoring from former students. Fernandez says she was impressed by the focus on inclusive app development and by a series of Apple speakers who were genuinely willing to help and share candid lessons. “Their hearts were in the right place,” she said.

The program exposes people of color to new possibilities. “It changed my life,” says Min Thu Khine, who now mentors coding students and works at an Apple Store Genius Bar. “My dream is to become a software engineer at Apple.”

The academy also draws positive notes from some researchers who study technology education, like Quinn Burke. It says its fully subsidized, in-person instruction surpasses the quality of many coding bootcamps, which have proliferated over the past decade and sometimes left students in debt and with limited skills.

But the fact that the academy is open to everyone can complicate teaching and how to measure success. An entire family attended together and at least two mothers came with their daughters. Students average in their 30s, ranging from 18 years old to, say, a septuagenarian grandfather who wanted to develop a photo app for his grandchild, according to Sarah Gretter, director of the Michigan State academy.