But that's what all entrenched interests do.
Schools of technology are not simply teaching baseline competence. They teach the theory of the same subjects, with a more hands on approach emphasized.
They are showing up to civil war reenactments with tanks and planes. The old timers are in a huff about it, but what else is new?
I'm not sure what this means.
My claim is that educational programs designed for the top 1% of students are not well-suited to educating the next 10%. And vice-versa. (E.g.: A Chicago math student is often not well-served by the sort of "calculus for engineers" courses you'll find at state college branch campuses. Also, a college senior struggling through their Calculus requirement is not at all well-served by Chicago's honors mathematics program. Neither approach is better in an absolute sense; but in each case, one is clearly better relative to the particular student.)
This is not some sort of tautology. It's a serious pedagogical hypothesis with decades of empirical research probing its truth value.
> They are showing up to civil war reenactments with tanks and planes.
I can't speak to Purdue specifically. In the cases I know about, the very explicit purpose of these alternative degree programs is to build a department by admitting students that the name-brand program rejects, or who fail out of the weeder courses. The "old timers" aren't in a huff about it, because they had no interest in admititng those students to their existing programs in the first place.
I can agree that in the sense that the people best positioned to become the most educated should be paired with the best equipped to effect that teaching. However, at some point we're arguing over what is the best position to be in, which is not in anyway objective.