Well, since there is the need for this work to be done, it makes sense that someone gets trained to do that work. I remain skeptical though whether a university

Well, since there is the need for this work to be done, it makes sense that someone gets trained to do that work. I remain skeptical though whether a university is the right provider for such a kind of education. I'm from Germany and we do not really have an equivalent to US college education. Secondary education is partially integrated in our equivalent to a high school and you go to university after that. Alternatively, there is another path of secondary education/apprenticeship where you split your time between working for a company to get hands-on experience in your chosen line of work and attend classes the rest of the time. Such apprenticeships are also available for IT and software development related work. Nevertheless, a lot of people believe that programming a computer is a sufficiently complex activity which only people that have attended university are capable of. That may be a part of the problem that the guy in the original article was complaining about: although people can acquire the skills needed to be a programmer elsewhere, they still go to universities in order to secure some credentials that will increase their chances of employment.