I was hoping this comment would come up, actually. The real difference in just in time vs. just in case has to do with delivery, sequencing and retention. A broad, solid foundation sounds great on paper, but there are some hard realities that sink in shortly after graduating. First, within about 6 months the amount of actual knowledge you retain from this foundation is probably going to be between 5 and 7%. That's 5-7% of the total from a not very efficient 4 or 5 years of dedicated study. How not efficient? Well, if you look at the in major portion of your degree, you probably had about 450 hours in real classroom instruction, or a little under 2 hours a week. So, of those 450 hours, you will probably retain less than 30 or 40 hours worth of real useful knowledge. you may dismiss this as hyperbole, but trust me, all that work dissolves incredibly quickly. I remember Big O, a couple of formulas, and the ability to order a sandwich (or was it a donut) in German.

More importantly, though, is the fact that since you only have 40 or so classroom hours in any class, and you have to teach to the average, it is extremely difficult to build up to a properly high level of skill in any particular subject. It feels hard while you are doing it, but after you graduate, you realize the people who have been focusing on the subject for a couple years are light years ahead of you. It's even more difficult to chain subject together to reach that high level. The closest thing we have is a generic 100,200,300 level system with some prerequisites.

How does this relate to just in time vs just in case? Even if you assume an identical breadth of knowledge, being able to sequence classes together in series instead of having semester and scheduling gaps means you go into the next class with more knowledge retained from the previous, which means you can build on your foundation in a more logical and efficient way and reach those higher levels that you just can't in a fragmented system. You can approach this from the ground up (building on higher and higher concepts), but the very nature of a JIT system means you can also approach it from the top down. That is, you can define the ends result or top level class, and then sequence each course to build up the fundamentals you need, just before you need them.

The point? If you are defining a broad base of skills, JIT allows you to master each one quicker and sequence them together to reach higher levels of mastery. If you need skills in the real world, JIT is the quickest and most efficient way to build those skills. The reason I consider disagreeing to be dangerously wrong, is that JIT is so much more effective at real education that those who bank on JIC for their future (students, schools, or countries) will find themselves left in the dustbin of history.