Goal Structured Solutions to acquire another student lender

Goal Structured Solutions in San Diego is acquiring Skills Fund LLC, a startup that specializes in lending to students at computer-coding boot camps.

The all-cash transaction was announced Tuesday. The sale price was not disclosed.

Skills Fund was founded in 2015, as programming boot camps were rising in popularity. The boot camps are full-time educational programs that typically last for only a few months and justify their hefty price tags with the promise that graduates will land high-paying jobs. The boot camps can cost from $10,000 to $20,000.

Skills Fund, which is based in Austin, Texas, has partnered with more than 70 schools to offer financing to their students. The company says that it makes sure that graduates of the boot camps have strong employment outcomes.

“We created Skills Fund four years ago with a simple premise: Don’t finance students to go to crappy schools,” Rick O’Donnell, co-founder and CEO of Skills Fund, said in a press release. “We’ve delivered on that promise by underwriting the quality of education to ensure programs deliver career outcomes worth a student’s time and money.”

Goal Structured Solutions has a pre-existing focus in education finance.

Ascent Student Lending is a subsidiary of Goal that offers student loans without the involvement of a co-signer. Goal has also made investments in education finance startups such as MPower Financing, which offers loans to international students.

Skills Fund will continue to be led by O’Donnell and co-founder Joseph Kozusko, but it will be operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of Goal, according to the press release.