Many young people may not need 4 years of college after 12 years of grade school to become productive. Increased tax funding of existing universities and heavy-handed regulation (see story below) may crowd out faster and cheaper (in terms of cumulative cost if not cost-per-semester) alternatives to the BA.

Crackdown on Coding Academies
By Doug Lederman
Inside Higher Education
February 3, 2014
SAN FRANCISCO -- A new type of educational provider has quietly sprung up in San Francisco and several other major cities, providing specialized training in computer coding and other skills that are in great demand from technology companies and other entrepreneurs.
And, a bit belatedly, government regulators are noticing, agitating some of the providers and highlighting anew the tension between educational innovation and government regulation aimed at protecting consumers and ensuring quality.
The issue flared last week in California, where the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education -- which licenses educational entities to operate, as part of the state's Department of Consumer Affairs -- sent letters warning as many as eight "coding academies" and other training providers that they were operating in violation of state law and threatening fines and potential shutdown if they do not apply for state recognition.
Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for the bureau, said that in the agency's continuing hunt for "unlicensed activity" by providers that "don't have good intentions for students," one of its enforcement specialists -- in a bit of "serendipity" -- recently came across an article about the coding academies, which began popping up two years ago to feed the explosive appetite of technology companies here and in some other high-tech corridors around the country.
The startups -- which include places like App Academy, Dev Bootcamp, General Assembly, Hack Reactor, Hackbright Academy, and Zipfian Academy -- offer intensive, full-time, short-term training programs in computer languages and other programming skills designed to lead directly to jobs. The fees are often steep -- typically between $8,000 and $12,000 for a six- to 10-week course -- and are paid directly by the students, since the classes and programs (which do not award degrees) do not qualify for federal or state financial aid.

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/...ed-providers-tech-training#ixzz2sGoitRle
Inside Higher Ed