What Careers Can You Unlock with an Income Share Agreement?

Meratas is one of the industry leaders in income share agreement (ISA) loans, and it’s easy to see why. We’ve discussed the student-friendly features that make this provider’s ISAs so appealing, and new educators are always joining its roster of satisfied clients. Students are reportedly reaping the benefits as they get to change careers more flexibly without absorbing all the risks. 

Though ISAs are most closely associated with coding bootcamps, they open more doors outside of software development. We’ve covered a few of the success stories of people that used the ISA structure to make the switch into careers in and outside of software development before. But those stories are just a small picture of what’s possible through an ISA. 

As more educators turn to ISAs to give their students a chance at a new career, Meratas and its partners can offer more opportunities for different careers. We’ve chosen to highlight three fast-growing career fields that you can access with an ISA; cybersecurity, sales, and software development.

Is an Income Share Agreement Worth It?

Though there’s plenty to like about ISA loans in general, the built-in risk alignment is one of the reasons that they’re a great option for starting a new career. ISA funders accept a small deposit or no deposit at all when an ISA recipient first starts their education path. 

The idea is that once a student has significantly increased their earning potential, they’ll have a much easier time paying for their education than if they had to come out of pocket at the beginning of their journey.

ISA funders accept a measure of risk that many other financing options don’t. If students don’t earn a job with a high enough salary to start repaying the ISA, the school or skills-training program never gets paid. This fact incentivizes educators to work as hard as possible to train students in industry-standard tools and provide them with top-notch career services. 

The faster you get a job with an ISA, the faster both sides benefit. You’ve started a new career where you’re making more money, and the funder is recouping their investment. The payments are indexed to a percentage of your income, and ISAs usually have other built-in features that let you know exactly how much you’ll be paying, and how long you’ll be paying.

With a finish line in sight and strong career support, you can trust that an ISA can give you a fair chance for a new career. The only thing left to do is to decide which career is right for you. 

Break into Cybersecurity with an Income Share Agreement

Companies are rapidly expanding their tech structures for several different reasons. More employees are working from home, online sales jumped 44 percent in 2020 from the previous year. With the added stress on these systems, there’s a pressing duty to keep sensitive corporate and financial data safe. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicts that the cybersecurity field will grow by 31 percent by 2029. That’s significantly higher than the four percent job growth rate that it expects across all occupations. You’ll be well-compensated when you join your new field as well, with entry-level salaries at around $63,946 for cybersecurity analysts. 

Your Student-Friendly ISA Option 

RapidAscent provides fundamental and advanced workforce upskilling in cybersecurity so companies can maintain their operational training in the latest technologies, threats, and best practices. This training is matched by a state-of-the-art academy to match corporate skills needs and bring full cyber education to candidates with non-traditional backgrounds into the field. 

Cybersecurity has a major need for skilled professionals, with around $1 trillion in losses last year and nearly 500,000 unfilled cyber positions in the US. You can help fill this need after studying at RapidAscent, where the company execution team has decades of experience in cyber training, controls, and both offensive and defensive cyber approaches.

RapidAscent promises the chance to build in-demand skills at a high level using cloud-delivered adaptive learning driven by AI, gamified live-fire threats, real-world on-the-job projects, and coaching from industry experts through its RapidAscent Workforce Training and the Academy programs. Its LinkForce© Cloud Service connects hiring corporations and the program’s learners to facilitate efficient and durable hiring processes.

In its ISA program, you pay no tuition upfront. You can attend your entire course without worrying about payment, only beginning to repay your debt when you land a job making above a certain salary. RapidAscent allows its students to enter a rapidly-growing industry in a curriculum designed alongside numerous industry partners, without an upfront payment pressure.

A New Sales Career with an Income Share Agreement

Sales is a relatively broad field, but the same basic skillsets apply no matter which field you join. If you’re driven, personable, and detail-oriented, you might be a good fit for a sales career. And with the tech industry’s market value growing consistently, you can claim a slice of this growing pie with a sales career.

The BLS predicts that the sales rep market will grow by six percent by 2029. Though this means fewer new jobs for sales reps than the other two fields we mentioned, it’s still higher than the national average. Plus if you feel like you’d make a great sales rep, you’re probably already excited about competing to join the field. 

You can expect an entry-level salary of around $44,000. However, one of the great things about sales is that your earning potential is nearly limitless. Your salary is just a base that you can supplement from commissions for every sale you make.

Your Student-Friendly ISA Option

Virtanza offers short, high-impact online sales programs that accelerate motivated learners’ paths to employment in Technology and Professional Sales. 

First, a sales aptitude assessment arms each student with their personalized inventory of best-suited sales roles, including technical sales, indirect sales, new business development, and more. Then, for eight to 13 weeks, students meet in synchronous, experiential classrooms with Master’s-level Certified Instructors and Coaches to research case studies, conduct role-plays, and participate in peer review, group assignments, and more. 

With every meeting, learners hone their skills and plan the next steps to take in their sales career. The program culminates in a Sales Profile within Virtanza’s Employer Portal, a subscribers-only matchmaking site that introduces program graduates to the hiring managers and recruiters who are keen on the level of expertise and credentials Virtanza’s sales programs produce.

Virtanza partners with a growing number of higher-learning institutions to offer its ACE Learning Evaluations Service-recommended sales courses. This allows graduates to apply credit earned towards a degree or professional certificate. 

Virtanza’s Technology Sales, Professional Sales Ready, Sales Management One and Two, and Sales Fundamentals for Entrepreneurs programs are all available for students to start monthly. The upside: you don’t have to quit your day job to upskill. Classes are held in evening hours to accommodate busy daytime schedules.

Virtanza sales programs are designed to fuel learners to achieve meaningful, rewarding employment, faster ramp-up and results, upward mobility, and career satisfaction. The organization offers a limited number of ISAs for its Technology Sales Program, currently enrolling at UMBC-Training Centers and the University of San Diego. 

Like every Meratas ISA, this school’s student-friendly features make it an appealing option for people who want to enter the sales field or just add sales skills to their toolkit.

Become a Software Developer with an Income Share Agreement

Software developers are in high demand for many of the reasons we discussed in the cybersecurity section earlier. Companies need to maintain a beautiful, functional, and fast online presence to compete. And because there’s such a high demand for software developers, several bootcamps have sprung up to fill this gap in the market.

The BLS predicts that there will be 22 percent more jobs for software developers by 2029. This positive outlook comes with a higher salary as well. Entry-level software developers can expect a salary of around $63,226. Your pay level depends on your location in the country, the company you’re joining, and more, but it’s a good financial turnaround for just a few months of committed study at a bootcamp. 

Your Student-Friendly ISA Option

Lambda School is a well-known coding bootcamp that offers students their pick of several tech programs. Its flagship course is its six-month full-stack web development course, where students learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Python, SQL, and more. Students can also choose to take a nine-month backend development course, where they study software engineering using Java in a course that the school co-developed with Amazon. 

Lambda School’s ISA is available for all of its programs, including full-stack development, backend development, and data science. Students make 24 payments at 17 percent of their income until they hit a payment cap of $30,000, complete all of their payments, or satisfy the agreement in another way. As with every other ISA, students don’t start paying until they have a job earning at least $50,000 per year. 

Income Share Agreement: Your Key to a New Career

You can join many promising new career fields with the help of an income share agreement. These educators have partnered with Meratas because they share a common goal: giving people a chance to start a new career even if they’re not in a great financial situation. 

Though people commonly think of ISAs as solely for budding software developers, you have a list of options that continues to grow every day. Realtors, salespeople, product managers, mechanics, and college students are taking advantage of this payment structure because of its benefits. 

You’ll be able to get a quality education from organizations that are willing to bet on the strength of their curriculum in the modern job market, without having to enter a contract that may have murky details or an unclear timeline.

ISAs align incentives between schools and students. They open the doors for more students to pursue their dreams while ensuring that they receive market-ready education. If schools don’t make students into attractive candidates, then they don’t get paid at all, and so there’s a safety net to give students the best career-changing education possible. 

The amount of money you have shouldn’t be a barrier to a better life. If you want to learn more about schools and training programs that offer student-friendly ISAs, head over to Meratas’s Students page.