Nothing has gone right for 2U since its disastrous acquisition of edX for $800 million (which I called The Triple Failure). Since then, the company has been plunged into a cycle of layoffs, reorganizations, and strategic pivots one after another, eventually culminating in Chapter 11 bankruptcy a few months ago.

Unfortunately, the cycle didn’t end there. Today, the company’s interim CEO Matt Norden made a bombshell announcement: 2U will transition away from traditional bootcamps to what they’re calling “innovative technical microcredentials,” and layoffs have followed, according to posts on LinkedIn and industry forums.

2U got into bootcamps through its $750 million acquisition of Trilogy Education about five years ago. Today’s announcement essentially means 2U is shutting down its Trilogy division.

A couple of years ago, 2U rebranded Trilogy bootcamps as edX bootcamps. Currently, edX.org lists 104 bootcamps from universities including Rice, Columbia, Rutgers, and many others.

Trilogy runs the bootcamps under different universities’ names. For example, the same AI bootcamp is offered through three different universities: Case Western Reserve, Rice, and Columbia.

Several major coding bootcamp providers across the U.S. have faced significant challenges in student enrollments, with widespread layoffs, restructuring, and some unexpected closures.

edX Bootcamps, part of 2U’s Alternative Credential Segment, were no exception. In its last filing before bankruptcy, 2U reported a $23.9 million revenue decline (23.3%) in its Alternative Credential Segment, driven largely by a 40% drop in coding bootcamp enrollments. This significant downturn highlights ongoing issues within the edtech industry, including the sustainability of the coding bootcamp business model.