Problem is that in many of the top CS universities today the lecturer is just a top researcher who's forced to read off of slides for a couple of hours a week and doesn't have the time, desire, the skills or the incentives to be a great pedagogue to the hundred or more students sitting at his/her lecture.

In many universities it does feel like you're basically paying for a very expensive real-life recording of something you could have just watched online. Sure, there are TA office hours, but is waiting in line to talk to a TA for 10 minutes a week worth tens of thousands a year?

IMO we should focus on teaching meta skills as soon as possible, teach people HOW to learn, and then let them be auto-didacts with opportunities to practice their craft and be surrounded by other people struggling to be great at the same skill.

This is obviously not talking about high stakes professions such as surgery, where perhaps the traditional approach is the best we can do until computers can vet our skills.