Nathan's answer explains away the glaring discrepancy between JS engineer salaries country-wide, and those employed in the SF Bay area. I can speak in a little more depth on how to interrogate the statistics we publish. In doing so, I'll try to answer in a style that encourages fact-checking, minimizes dependence on faith, and provides a framework for invalidating the claims upon which our statistics are based.

Graduates of Hack Reactor are not only highly skilled, but benefit from a career development support system that allows them to represent their skills accurately and competitively on the market. It's also helpful that several employers have publicly highlighted the caliber and productivity of our graduates. Just a few days ago, a Forbes article was headlined by a single graduate's work at famo.us, rebuilding Facebook Paper using an alpha framework in under a week.

The best way to dispel suspicions of dishonesty with outcome statistics like this is to follow Eric's advice: "go to the source". While individuals will largely keep their salary information confidential, a tenacious investigator could use a quantitative approach to reconstruct a reasonable picture of our graduate outcomes with just a little bit of sleuthing:

1. We will start with the twin claims on the Hack Reactor web site that 98% of graduates get hired, and that their average salary is $110,000. This was the premise of the original question.
2. Next we need to understand what the 98% number means, and how it relates to the $110,000 number. I wrote about how we arrive at the 98% figure on Quora here, and I also outlined the many ways in which this type of number could be fudged by bad actors.
3. 0 - 2 students per cohort drop out for reasons including health, family, academic intensity and other related circumstances. We don't publish data on these individuals out of respect for their privacy. As for everyone else (graduates of the program), whether or not they count in the "98%", they are listed here on the Engineers page of our web site, along with where they currently work, and self-curated contact information. While a graduate could theoretically elect to be removed from this page, this has yet to ever happen, and as of the date of this answer, it contains everyone who has ever graduated.
   
   From this source, we can validate where everyone works through LinkedIn stalking, or in the case of a diligent reporter, by contacting all companies concerned.
4. Once we know where everyone is working and what their job title is, we can use more targeted sources than PayScale, such as AngelList or GlassDoor, to discern the salary ranges of employees who are hired for similar positions. This would allow you to estimate most every graduate's salary at worst with a margin of error around +/- $20,000. It's best that I don't post links in this section, or suggest example companies, so as to avoid tainting the value of the exercise.
5. Once we have everyone's estimated salary with this degree of accuracy, we can then take a stab at re-calculating the average graduate salary.

This method is reliant on two claims we make: 1. That our list of graduates on our web site is comprehensive; and 2. That our total attrition rate is 0-2 per cohort.

If we were found to be hiding people who graduated and have poor salaries from our directory, or if it was discovered that three or four people failed to complete a single class for any reason, then this would severely embarrass our program. With ~30 participants in every cohort, there are plenty of potential witnesses to such deception.

For those approaching this question out of curiosity rather than skepticism, there's a lot of anecdotal evidence worth looking at, such as testimonials by our graduates both on yelp.com and Quora. Consider, for example, Will Ngo's answer to What is your review of Hack Reactor? in which he observed that among his cohort "six figure offers were the new norm". On our part, we've compiled data that gives a little more context:

Included in this graph is everyone who performed anything resembling a job search, in any city around the world, including those in other countries and locales with lower US$ salaries than the SF Bay Area. Simply put, it includes everyone listed on our web site who received job offers of any kind. No one who completed Hack Reactor is in an internship. Most did not have previous programming experience when they applied.

We are very much aware that these are extraordinary claims, and take the burden upon ourselves to present extraordinary evidence in support. That said, the old hedge fund disclaimer applies: "past earnings are not to be construed as an indicator of future performance".

Hack Reactor is not a 'school' in the traditional sense. We don't guarantee anyone a job, certain salary or any other outcome. Those who complete our program do not leave with a degree, certification, diploma or qualification of any kind that is recognized by any employer or licensing body in any field. We consider ourselves fortunate to be able to play a part in helping people who put their faith in us to combine rewarding work with economic empowerment.

Whether you are considering Hack Reactor or any other program - including far more costly undergraduate or post-graduate computer science or software engineering degree programs, I would encourage you to do some research. Don't accept claims, including ours, at face value. Reach out to graduates of recent cohorts. Dig deep into publicly available information. Look for holes. If you find anything suspicious, do raise questions on Quora for the benefit of others, or alternatively, feel free to reach out to me directly.

Most importantly, however, we don't recommend that anyone look to our program with financial motivations alone. The true value in what programs like ours provide is an environment for those curious or passionate about writing software to collaborate with like minded individuals from a variety of fascinating backgrounds, wherein we all grow together as a guild of dedicated professionals. The fact that 98% of graduates who seek work in engineering find it, and are compensated with six figure salaries, is simply the clearest for of validation that we are accomplishing that over-arching goal.

Edit: Our moving average has changed to $105K as of the most recent cohort update.

I'm one of the Dev Bootcamp students Jonathan mentioned who was accepted into ThoughtWorks University (hey Jonathan!!!). My starting salary was in line with the bootcamp ad promises that I've seen, so I ended up getting the best of both worlds - competitive pay and a remarkable apprenticeship experience.

Having said that, starting a career in web development has not been an easy undertaking for me. On the contrary, it has been emotionally, intellectually, and physically draining (especially during my first year as a junior dev, when impostor syndrome was at its worst). This is the why many programmers more seasoned than myself will advise you against becoming a programmer just for the salary.

I don't want to dissuade you from learning to code or becoming a web dev. To be clear, I've never been happier in my career than I am right now. But the reason has nothing to do with my salary. My team and I are kind of like chefs, except we make recipes with 1s and 0s instead of stuff from the fridge. Thousands of people will consume the "dishes" we make with those recipes. If we do our jobs right, they'll love what we make and rave about it to their friends. "Chefs" like us have written apps that have reunited families, brought down governments, entertained millions of people, etc. There's honor in that.

All of which is to say, I'll remember the impact I made long after I've forgotten the things I bought with my salary.

Check out the "By City" tab on the links you posted. Keeping in mind that both Hack Reactor and App Academy are located in the SF Bay Area, and that graduates are most likely getting jobs in the area, there's no real discrepancy in the salary figures cited by both schools.

Page on payscale.com
Page on payscale.com

That's not to say those are great indicators of what a graduate of Hack Reactor or App Academy might be paid--that's making a lot of assumptions, including that graduates are paid an average amount for their skills, and that they fit neatly into a "Rails" or "JavaScript" category rather than a more broadly skilled engineering role. I work for and went through Hack Reactor, and that certainly wasn't even close to my experience when I was out job hunting. My offers clustered far above what would be considered "average" for a JavaScript job, and certainly weren't limited to roles doing JavaScript.

I won't go into more depth, but I'm sure one of my colleagues will be along shortly to comment about the particular transparency of our hiring statistics.

Allow me to push back on the question a little.

Dev Bootcamp graduates are coached to turn down ridiculously high offers, which are usually made by freshly funded startups that are shedding engineers or otherwise in disarray. Instead I tell students to focus on their five year trajectory. I've seen several students turn down offers with high pay to work at a place with a tradition of apprenticeship and mentoring. Dev Bootcamp graduates are 10% of the most recent Thoughtworks[1] University class, which is a famously competitive paid apprenticeship. We also have students who graduate and defer looking for a job to dive into a new technology, or build something in the public interest[2]. I absolutely view those as success.

The metric I care about it how many people are pursuing their best livelihood.

As for the salary numbers, they are real. The people in our program are highly motivated, well trained and willing to relocate. That is not the general population.

[1] Thoughtworks: FORGET GOOGLE: The Top 10 Hardest Tech Company Job Interviews
[2] IndieGoGo campaign to fund a computer lab and build software for a school in Las Vegas. swotbot.org

I went to a coding 'bootcamp' called CodeAstra in Hyderabad(India). I was in one of their last batch. I can't write a single thing which was good about the course because literally there was none. There is no infrastructure, it runs of out of utterly congested flat that smells like public toilet and there is nothing like bootcamp there. The main instructor (also the founder) seems to be disillusion about it. In span of 3 months he took 4 sessions and rest he gave us the videos to complete. That was it. Everything is ad-hoc there and most of the time he is not in campus to address the issues or clear doubts.

No internet, No water, Stinking Washroom, Poor Course structure, No Guidance or mentorship and on top of that the instructor does not make effort to teach students. The first batch of codeastra was IITians so with little to no guidance they did quite well but next batches are absolute mess.

My rating for code astra is 1/10.

I would not recommend this Course to anyone!!!! Stay Away.

I am sure bootcamp founders will have better answers on this, but one thing to consider is variation in cost of living and salaries.

The links your provided show national averages for RoR and JS developers. But the cost of living index in SF is about 1.5 times that of the national avg. i.e. RoR salary national average of 60k x 1.5 = 90k, so App Academy would seem to be right on the money, for their average in SF.

So look again at the averages for specific cities and I think you will find that the numbers seem more feasible.

I also imagine that many bootcamp graduates at the more selective schools have previous programming experience, or other forms of expertise that lead to them being paid above average for developers with <1yr experience.

Programming bootcamps, also known as code academies or coding bootcamps, are just now beginning to report outcomes - salaries and placement rates - in a standard form through an industry partnership called Council on Integrity in Results Reporting (CIRR).

The first round of reports, covering bootcamps from the first half of 2016, is now available.

I wrote about this and other concerns for those considering attending a bootcamp in my Forbes article, 4 Reasons Not To Learn To Code. A few highlights:

• Median salaries six months after graduation did not hit the magic six figures at any of the twelve bootcamps that reported outcomes. One came close, the rest reported substantially lower salaries for recent graduates.
• Not everybody graduates. Seven of twelve reporting bootcamps had graduation rates of 90% or better, though not everybody finished on time. One had only 67% of students graduate.
• An independent survey by Course Report found that many bootcamp graduates change jobs quickly. A little more than half of those surveyed had had just one job after graduation, but among those who switched, the median time before changing jobs was only 8 months.

We mention that a typical junior developer grad, in Northeast Ohio, is seeing somewhere between $40-$60k salary. Why the wide range?

• Some of our students have had internships or some relevant prior work experience, so they merit higher pay.
• Some of our hiring partners offer tuition reimbursement and that can reflect in a lower starting salary.
• Some of our hiring partners offer lower cash compensation but have kickass benefits, like free family health insurance.

Currently what we're seeing though is that if you have no prior IT experience and just get started you're looking at somewhere in the 40-45k range here which is right at the median income for the state and pays plenty to have a good lifestyle here. In SF, Chicago, or NYC you'd be nearly poverty level where here you can have a decent place and a car.

As always, however, anyone is welcome to reach out to our former grads and talk to them. Go to the source.

As an edit, your salary out the door doesn't mean much at all. If you learn well and turn out to be a good dev, you will likely double your salary in the first 5 years. Like Jonathan Eyler-Werve I encourage my students to seek out good starting opportunities. The pay will come.

From my perspective, as a prospective bootcamp applicant, the figures offered by bootcamps are respective of the rates paid i) in their local area and ii) to graduates of those bootcamps you've picked out.

The Payscale.com rates appear to be nationwide for the US, so it's understandable why there would be a gulf between those rates. The site itself shows a figure for San Francisco that is in line with what some bootcamps suggest.

I'm of the impression that there's an additional premium paid to staff in the SF/ SV area, because of the candidate demand there. A lot of candidates are filtered out by the more-established bootcamps. It's in their interests to ensure the quality of candidates, because some are paid a referral fee for student hires.

Other bootcamps in areas outside of SF have highlighted lower salaries. Software Craftsmanship Guild mentions a junior developer role making $40-60K in their region (Frequently Asked Questions).

I think 'lying' is a bit of a strong insinuation to make in this instance.