Edit: to make myself clear, I absolutely think universities should focus more on thinking than doing. That is not a valid excuse for focusing on campus experience and the like.
Also, parroting political talking points about snowflake kids and such doesn't provide any value, even if draws support from a certain type of crowd.
Right up until you get to your postdoc is seems like you’re mostly playing ‘guess the right answer’ with your professors.
It’s great for another dose of slightly more specialized basic knowledge, but it’s not going to prepare you for anything after that unless you stay in academia.
High tuition colleges only exist prey on low-talent people trying to buy fake credentials. Anybody talented enough to learn from a college what they can't learn at a lower priced college, can get a scholarship to that college.
What many are proposing here is expending that into trade schools/edu, which I suppose makes sense for what most coding consists of. But what's most revealing is this insistence on the public shouldering that burden instead of employers who reap the benefits investing into the training.
It's pretty stupid that a 4 year degree is turning into a checkmark credential. It's a lot of time and effort to invest into something you aren't particularly interested in but need to get some job where the time and effort put towards the degree don't mean a lot.
The argument of the article is very clearly that prospective employees should be judged based on skills, not degrees. It doesn't matter if higher education improves. This still holds.
The primary benefit of college is a degree. Networking is a secondary benefit, where the more elite the college the better opportunity is.
There is absolutely no difference in the quality of self-education in, say, computer science or mathematics vs. going to a top-tier college for it, given a motivated, moderately intelligent student.
"I already had a bachelor's degree in Biology, it turns out I could learn to code!" - Huge shocker...
Just take computer science, an easy one because of the abundant resources available through the Internet. There is absolutely zero gain, once again, for the moderately intelligent, motivated student, in terms of learning from going to a college vs. a motivated, well-thought self-study. Study plans are available online. Course syllabuses are available online. Textbooks are available online. Problem solutions are available online.
One autodidact thinks: "No need to go to college and pay all that money; I can learn it all on my own". Some actually put in the effort to do so and do quite well in their lives.
Another autodidact thinks: "Holy ____, there are facilities, equipment, and educated experts here that I could never hope to get access to on my own! If I use my autodidact ability to take advantage of this huge concentration of knowledge resources, I can not only learn the basic stuff in the classes but a whole bunch of advanced topics besides." These people go on to work on what people refer to as "interesting problems" at FAANG-level technology companies and have fun doing it, not to mention being paid amazingly well.
Choose wisely, autodidacts.
"that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up, in the communicating and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly, he seeth how they look when they are turned into words: finally, he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour's discourse, than by a day's meditation"
It is often paraphrased today as, "I learn more in an hour's discourse than in a day's meditation."
You're reinforcing my point: If all this information is out there, and the only people actually completing it are those who have already gone through a degree program... maybe this shit's relatively hard to learn on your own? Maybe there should be some kind of institution, where completing a course of study awards some kind of certificate... crazy talk??
It was said of of {Gauss, Newton, Euler - I forgot who} that he made his way by Euclid's Elements by simply reading until he did not understand, then thinking until he understood, then returning, until he had gone through the whole thing by himself. I am not Newton. Neither are you. Neither is almost anyone.
It turns out that learning is something of a team sport, and is best accomplished (for the vast majority of humanity) in some kind of structured environment, and that we respond better to people than to screens of videos. Who knew...!
MOOCs are a complete waste of time. Boot camps are just a worse and cheaper version of college, in terms of learning. They both cater to those who refuse to read. People serious about learning on their own are not going to use MOOCs.
Discussion is available online about many topics. Your notion that someone has to be Newton to read through a book and understand it is ridiculous.
So we're back to having people fully involved, might as well just cut the crap and go to school.