Good News, SANS Increases prices again!

TechGromit

Good news, SANS increases the price of courses to $5,910 starting in December at the Washington DC conference. My training coordinator will be more than relieved they they will no longer have to worry about having unused training dollars at the end of the year they have to figure out how to spend. Unfortunately the cost of the certification exam remains at rock bottom price of $659, but we are holding out hope that SANS will reconsider there position on these fees as well.

Pass along the good news.

zxbane

Their training that I've attended was great but I won't lie, it is very very expensive as well. Without employer assistance it would be nearly impossible to go.

cyberguypr

I'm extremely excited to hear the news. Given my rarely increasing training budget this allows me to keep finding creative ways to get into the Work Study program.

BlackBeret

cyberguypr wrote: »

I'm extremely excited to hear the news. Given my rarely increasing training budget this allows me to keep finding creative ways to get into the Work Study program.

You could always go for more EC-Council training. I heard you were a fan of it.

cyberguypr

I repped you only because that is the most hilarious thing I've read here in a while. LOL!

danny069

SANS is in demand, greedy move on their part to milk people dry. However, do you really need to take a class to pass an exam with them?

cyberguypr

Simple answer is no, you do not need to take a class. Although the exams are developed from the course contents, if you know your stuff you can definitely pass. I know a few here have successfully challenged GIAC tests. Taking the course just dramatically enhances your chances of passing.

JoJoCal19

Geez. They just increased prices earlier this year. As long as the demand is there and companies keep paying the money and keeping their events full, the prices will continue to go up. With the way things are going in security I don't see demand waning anytime soon. I wonder if a price increase in Work Study is coming as well. I only have a few more classes I'd like to take and then I'm done dealing with them.

636-555-3226

No surprise re: the raise. I've seen a few generic training companies offer security classes, but there are no certs to go along with them (not that that matters to some people), and the quality is unknown. SANS is essentially a name brand for technical, useful security training and nobody else comes close. They'll keep raising rates until a lucky person manages to break that glass ceiling.

beads

As the joke goes... SANS was founded by a group of Harvard MBAs.

Good luck, guys. Too pricey for my budget.

- b/eads

TechGromit

cyberguypr wrote: »

Simple answer is no, you do not need to take a class. Although the exams are developed from the course contents, if you know your stuff you can definitely pass.

However, the cost of the Exam is 60% more expensive when you do not bundle it with a course. I'm going to bounce being a facilitator off my manager next time I talk to him. If I can get the company to pay for Hotel, meals and airfare, it will much more affordable. Than if I pass the exam, I'll get my $1,100 back.

cyberguypr wrote: »

... this allows me to keep finding creative ways to get into the Work Study program.

Creative ways makes me wonder if "accidents" are in the future for other SANS facilitators.

BlackBeret

These price increases always coincide with our training budget decreases. SANS priced themselves out of our range as of January. Considering I've taken PWK, PTS, and read the GPEN books I'm to the point of recommending eLearnSecurity for beginner/intermediate and Offensive Security for more advanced training. At 1/5th of the price and better training I might be done with SANS.

the_Grinch

I'd say while I hate that it costs so much, at the same time, it keeps the value of the certs high. eLearnSecurity is definitely great stuff, but you won't find a ton of places asking for them. Obviously, Offensive Security is amazing and they are definitely seeing more light, but at the same time they're not asked for nearly as much as SANS courses. Plus SANS courses tend to touch some topics that aren't touched by eLearnSecurity or Offensive Security.

Finally, eLearnSecurity and Offensive Security require you do everything at home at your own pace. I know at my agency it would be an almost impossible sell to get them to pay for self paced courses, even if they are better and cost less. They'll do remote training that is a week in length, but the mention of a self paced course remotely would be DOA.

veritas_libertas

I don't know this as fact, but I would imagine most of SANS business comes from companies sending their employees. For that reason I doubt they're putting much of a focus on how much individuals are willing to pay. I'm currently taking SEC542 through vLive.

If I'm going to pay for something personally it will be through eLearnSecurity or Offensive Security. I do want to take attend a live SANS course through their work study. Maybe next year

SaSkiller

My gods.

Danielm7

I love a little sarcasm in the morning, hah. But yes, as the others mentioned, this just puts it further out of the realm of a lot of training budgets, bummer. Great training but when you start getting over $1K a day plus travel and lodging and such it becomes a hard sell in a lot of companies.

NetworkingStudent

Why do all these vendors keep raising their rates for exams and training?

I haven’t seen any added value to these certifications to justify the raise in price.

I know Microsoft just raised their rates for their certification exams.

JoJoCal19

@NetworkingStudent Because supply & demand. As long as there is demand, especially increasing demand, vendors will supply the training at an ever increasing cost. I guess we had reached a point of equilibrium with respect to SANS' prices because they had stayed put for a while but they just had a price hike at the beginning of this year and have announced another for the end of the year so I guess demand is still rising.

dustervoice

I was planning on taking a few SANS courses this year. Now I need to sell my Bugatti Chiron to pay for it. I hope I get a positive ROI.

TechGromit

the_Grinch wrote: »

I'd say while I hate that it costs so much, at the same time, it keeps the value of the certs high.

I guess for those of us that do have existing certifications they are all that much more valuable, because so many people can't afford to obtain them. There main problem here is SANS has no competition for most of the certifications they offer. If there was a competing organization that had industry accepted certifications, it would keep SANS prices in check. Besides CISSP, CHFI, and OSCP, I can't think of any competing certifications for Incident response, Malware analysis, Network monitoring, etc.

Remedymp

TechGromit wrote: »

I guess for those of us that do have existing certifications they are all that much more valuable, because so many people can't afford to obtain them. There main problem here is SANS has no competition for most of the certifications they offer. If there was a competing organization that had industry accepted certifications, it would keep SANS prices in check. Besides CISSP, CHFI, and OSCP, I can't think of any competing certifications for Incident response, Malware analysis, Network monitoring, etc.

I would say, once ISACA begins heavy marketing of CSX-P and CSX-S, it would probably take the lead. Especially if it is integrated into some academic institutions like CISA is.

zxbane

I don't see ISACA certifications passing SANS in terms of respect or technical depth anytime soon.

TechGromit

Remedymp wrote: »

I would say, once ISACA begins heavy marketing of CSX-P and CSX-S, it would probably take the lead.

Thanks for the heads up on these certifications. A quick search on CareerBuilder for CSX with no location set, yielded four jobs, GCIH on the other hand gave me 106 matches, and CISSP 884. While the CISSP isn't an incident handler cert, it does give a comparison on how widely accept it is compared to other certifications.

While the CSX is a lot cheaper than SANS courses, ($540 for exam and 500 for 6 months lab access to study for the exam), the lack of industry acceptance means that few with bother to get the certification.

beads

@TechGromit;

What's wildly ironic to me is that GHIC as it stands today as a course feels almost 10 years behind the time compared to where the real cutting edge of DFIR stands today. Problem is we're also talking about proprietary technologies at the same time.

Still its good to learn how to do math without the use of a calculator.

GHIC = Whack-a-mole

- b/eads

Ertaz

As of today, I am still approved for one SANS course this year. I was going to do the GPEN then GCUX next year. I may flip that because a coworker also wants GPEN this year and we have to have diversity in our course selection.

UnixGuy

@TechGromit & @Beads : we're talking about GCIH here right?

bitwire

Makes it waaaay more difficult for invidivuals to get into their educational system... time to find a security organisation who's willing to invest

JustFred

Unless i find a company willing to pay for me to get these certs, I'm some what screwed for the near future. ahahahaha

There are always other means to still have the knowledge of course.

danny069

If I waited for my company to pay for computer training I'd be as old as that knight guarding the holy grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

JustFred

lol@the above comment. Its a shame that we often think this way, but sometimes it is what it is.

TechGromit

UnixGuy wrote: »

@TechGromit & @Beads : we're talking about GCIH here right?

Yes, sorry my mistake. Often what happens when I post, I get interrupted to do actual work at work, so I don't proofread what I write as carefully as I should before I post.

I have a love hate relationship with SANS, I love there training, but hate there prices.