Best Income Share Agreement Courses in India
Did you know, you can learn for free and pay only after you get placements. Seems a little impossible but it is possible. Income Share Agreement (ISA) is a contract between a student and a school in which the student instead of paying school fees, pays the cost of the course with a percentage of salary for the time needed till the agreed amount is paid. The students only need to pay if they get a paid job of a certain salary amount.
There are various companies that offer income share agreement courses in India. However, you need to find the perfect fit for you. Lambda school is one of the best ISA schools. Here, we will discuss amazing lambda school alternatives in India.
Here are the best income share agreement courses in India- Learn for Free and Pay after placements-
1. Pesto
Founded year- 2018
Headquarters- Delhi NCR
Founders- Ayush Jaiswal, Andrew Linfoot
Funding- $2 Mn
Investors- Ashish Tulsyan, Ritesh Malik, and Matrix Partner
Pesto is a Gurugram based edtech company that is trying to bridge the skill gap between engineers and multinational companies. This startup has two programs to offer Indian engineers- Pesto PRO and Pesto Remote. These programs are designed too for experienced engineers who want to upskill themselves. This gives them an opportunity to break into international high-tech careers.
Pesto Remote is an upskilling program that is taught online. With this program, engineers can achieve Pesto’s next-level learning, development, and skills solutions sitting at their homes.
This edtech company has an aim to enable global pay parity and give huge opportunities to Indian engineers. Pesto claims to help engineers find high-paying remote jobs and transform them into lifelong learners with the ability to handle and solve problems.
Pesto works on the ISA model, meaning Income Sharing Agreement. Pesto Tech started with an ISA batch of 3 students and to date, they have accepted only 56 students. They have received over 75,000 applicants in just a couple of months.
Once they hire the engineers, the company takes 17% of their salary for the next three years. Students need to make 36 monthly payments based on their estimated income. The payments made are verified annually by tax return and over or underpayments are adjusted accordingly.
This agreement caps payments at INR 20 lakh. This is done to make sure that no student pays more than that. In addition to this, if a graduate does not make double their last salary, they do not need to pay anything.
Remote jobs do not require an onsite presence and also companies are looking for top talent from all over the world. Startups like Pesto Tech can reach students all over India and conduct online sessions which avoids overhead costs of creating campus.
Ayush Jaiswal, CEO at Pesto Tech says, “The big opportunity is disrupting the tech recruitment market- once we have enough supply, we foresee a direct bridge between Pesto and engineering hiring managers looking to hire top talent. They just tell us the requirement and we provide them with the perfect candidate.” Also, employers not only save search costs but also save direct recruitment costs that they pay to recruiters.
Pesto tech has multiple employers in Silicon Valley. They have received a total funding of $2Mn from Angel Investors and Matrix partners. Pesto has various international companies as hiring partners and the graduated engineers are employed for remote working in these companies. This company does not work with clients.
99% of the Pesto graduates work remotely irrespective of where the specific company is located. Over half a million open software engineering jobs are available in the US alone. India has around 5 Mn software engineers in India and the average salaries are between $6,600(entry-level) and $11,400 (senior-level) per year.
Pesto tech is working to find dedicated engineers in India, invest in them with world-class, intensive training, and make them effective remote team members in US companies earning more money than they ever thought possible.
Pesto received queries from 75000 applicants in just a couple of months. On this Jaiswal said, “We didn’t quite anticipate such demand and are scaling up our admissions team to review profiles faster. The next short-term goal of Pesto tech over the next 6 months is to accept about 1000 students and get them an average salary of 30 lakhs each or a gross salary value of 300 crores”.
The company says they want to focus on smaller things first. But if they can scale up, Jaiswal says “over a 3 year period we are looking at GSV jobs that could have gone to other countries”.
2. Masai School
Founded year- 2019
Location- Bangalore, India
Funding- $9M
Investors- Saurabh Garg, Qed Innovation Labs, Kulin Chandrakant Shah, and 30 other Investors.
So, here is the Masai school review–
Masai provides job-oriented software training solutions. This company offers a 20-week program in Banglore. Users are charged only if the salary received by them is above a certain amount. The users only need to pay after placements.
There are various full-time and part-time courses taught at Masai School. The courses offered are income share agreement coding classes, android development, and computer science programs, and a full-stack web and computer science program. They also have courses such as r-program and i-program.
Masai believes that potential is distributed all across Indian society but opportunity is not. Masai has worked on democratizing education with ISA, Income Share Agreement. ISA helps students to study the course without worrying about fees at all. The upfront fee is INR 0 for any course of the student’s choice. After completion of the course, students pay back only if they get a job of INR 5,00,000/- per year or more.
ISA is a legal contract that makes the Masai school outcome-based. ISA is nothing like an education loan as you do not need to pay any interest rate and amp and no collaterals are required. Also, if you do not get placed within 1 year of study, the education cost is Rs.0 and you will not pay anything back.
Income Share Agreement is an amazing way through which companies like Masai invest in your future and success. They succeed if the students succeed as developers.
Masai school is a seed-funded company with 53 students. They are going to introduce a coding program that is specifically designed for working professionals who are otherwise not eligible to enroll in an online course. The CEO and co-founder at Masai School, Prateek Shukla says, “Keeping in mind that this is an on-campus program, the only challenge we face currently is real estate rental rates”
Masai School has 700 plus hiring partners including Samsung, Sahrechat, Urban Company, Instamojo, Airmeeet, GlobalLogic, Lendingkart, Mobile Premier league, Nobroke, Paytm, etc.
They offer online and offline courses at campuses in Patna, Pune, Bengaluru, and Indore. They also work with NBFCs to underwrite the student’s fees.
These are the 2 companies acquired by Masai School-
Design Shift
Edtech startup, Masai School acquired Design Shift Academy, an institute that provides guidance on user interface and user experience design.
Prateek Shukla, CEO of Masai School said that the acquisition will help strengthen Masai School’s existing curriculum by introducing comprehensive learning programs on UI and UX design and product management, taking the company from a coding-centric to a career focussed learning platform. They are aiming to make design education a multidisciplinary aspect through acquisition.
PrepLeaf – Data Analyst Preparation
Masai acquired a Delhi-based, PrepLeaf, an end-to-end placement preparation company that focuses on data analytics for $1 million or about Rs. 7.5 crore. This was the second company that was acquired by Masai after Design SHhift.
With PrepLeaf, Masai School will now offer courses in data and business analytics along with web development and UI/UX design. They are targeting to become a one-stop destination for outcome-based education.
PrepLeaf was founded in 2017 by IIT Kanpur alumni Ankit Aggarwal, Amit Saharan adn Aman Singhal. This company offered 5 month-long courses in data analytics. They have around 250 students enrolled in the data analytics test preparation courses.
Similar to Masai, PrepLeaf offers courses through ISA. with PrepLeaf, students do not need to pay any upfront fees and only pay if they earn more than Rs. 5 lakh per annum after completion of the course. The average placement rate of PrepLeaf is 90% and the average salary is Rs. 7.5 lakh per annum.
3. Newton School
Founded year- 2019
Location- Bengaluru, India
Founders- Siddarth Maheshwari and Nishant Chandra
Funding- 6.1 Mn
Investors- RTP Global and 17 other investors
Newton School has a unique way of payment which involves paying only after placement. Also, students will only pay fees to the school after they get a job with an annual package of no less than Rs. 6 lakh per annum.
Newton School provides an income-sharing agreement (ISA) after the placement of students. A student can enroll and complete the course without paying a single penny to the school. They must agree to pay back 15% of the monthly income for three years or pay Rs. 3 lakh in total. This way students can learn coding and several other courses and get top-notch education without worrying about money.
The website under ISA states that a student does not have to pay more than Rs.3 lakh no matter how high the salary is. The payments are paused if the student leaves or gets fired within three months of joining. The payments will continue when they get a new job.
If a student completes three months in their first job within minimum guaranteed CTC, they will have to pay the entire amount irrespective of the employment status. The income share agreement expires in a year if the student does not get a job of Rs. 6 lakhs per annum or more after course completion. The school keeps supporting students who are still interviewing for companies after course completion.
This company was founded by Nishant Chandra and Siddarth Maheshwari in 2019. Newton School is one of the most amazing Masai School alternatives. They allow people to cross financial and locational barriers to achieving goals of becoming great software developers.
Students from small towns and cities studying tier 2 or 3 colleges get the opportunity to bridge the gap in terms of skills and industry exposure with those students from tier 1 unis. neNewton School teaches coding and computer programming and also offers its students a full stack development course which runs for around 6 months.
In six months, the program includes 1000 plus hours of coding, 50 plus hours of soft skills training, live projects, and mentorship oversight. They ensure that students get oriented exposure and also assist them to get the right exposure.
The classes are followed by one-hour-long mentor sessions in which software developers from major tech companies such as Microsoft, HotStar, Amazon, Ola, Oracle, Adobe, Flipkart, IBM, Zomato, Paytm, etc give live sessions to 10 students at max. Students get daily assignments for regular practice while weekends are for contests and quizzes.
From 2019 till now, three batches have completed the course. The rate of placement for the first batch was above 90 percent. The alumni’s got jobs in companies like Unacademy, Rapido, Toppr, Maersk, 7 eleven, Jumbotail, etc.
