She applied and, to her excitement, got in, taking out $14,000 in private loans to take the six-month online course.
But a lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court Thursday alleges the course was not taught by California Institute of Technology instructors, nor did it provide the promised cybersecurity training to launch Lopez into a new, high-paying career.
The suit, seeking class-action status, was brought by nonprofit law firm Student National Legal Defense and argues that the course was taught by a for-profit San Francisco company, Simplilearn, formerly called Fullstack.
Caltech is also named as a defendant in the case.
And while the course used the prestige of Caltech, which manages NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and is a famed proving ground of innovation, in its marketing, the school was not involved in teaching the course material, the suit alleges.
"A main proposition of our case is that a private company is exploiting the brand of a prestigious nonprofit university to become more attractive to students," said Eric Rothschild, the litigation director at Student Defense.
"Caltech does not disclose to prospective students that those companies run the entire program, and that Caltech does nothing," the complaint said. Caltech does receive about 25 percent of the tuition paid by students "for doing nothing with or for students. Students, meanwhile, do not get what they pay for," the lawsuit said.
"When I enrolled in the Caltech Cybersecurity Bootcamp, I really thought I was receiving a prestigious education" that would start a new career, Lopez said in a statement. "My fellow classmates and I were deceived, and I don't want any other students to end up in this situation."
The lawsuit said one of Lopez's instructors had a degree in musical theater, was himself a recent graduate of the program, and was not capable of answering many technical questions during classes.
Rothschild estimated that the lawsuit could include a class of similarly situated people "in the lower hundred" who went through the same program. He said he was aware of other schools partnering with Simplilearn but said those students would not be part of this putative class.
"Our point here is that it doesn't appear that there is any real regulation of these kinds of partnerships" between nonprofit educational institutions and for-profit continuing education companies, Rothschild said. He added there was "some uncertainty there about what the requirements are" when it comes to these kinds of business relationships.
Student Defense has also filed multiple lawsuits and arbitration actions against another for-profit coding academy called Bloom Tech, formerly Lambda School. Those actions, on behalf of former customers, also alleged subpar instruction and false promises, as well as allegations the company misleadingly advertised the placement of graduates with well-known tech companies.
Some of those disputes centered on whether the company had properly registered itself with the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education.
Rothschild said the lawsuit is seeking two main remedies: first, that students like Lopez receive financial restitution for the money they sunk into the courses; and, second, that Caltech to be more forthcoming and inform students, "that we don't actually teach any of this," when it comes to the bootcamp.
As for Lopez, Rothschild said she has yet to find even an entry-level cybersecurity job.
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