A few years ago I went to a coding bootcamp. I had very mixed feelings at the experience.

It was 'run' by the local university, but really was just a package deal they bought from another company.

I gave the university some feedback that they have all the resources at the university to do WAY better than these commercial bootcamps... but the folks involved bought the package deal and are invested in it.

It's sad, the university IMO could do better, if they tried.

Meanwhile the traditional unversity system does work, but is a huge time investment, and the bootcamp system works 'kinda' for some folks ... but fails most IMO.

They have to a certain extent. As an example, half of med students attend class "rarely" or "never" preferring online prep material. The fundamental problem is that the utility of universities is more about credentialing and signalling than actual learning. The Moocs are fine for learning but have 0 credential value. Until that changes they won't replace universities.

A book, "Failure to Disrupt Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education", recently came out about exactly this. In an interview, the author, Justin Reich, explained that schools perform so many different functions in so many different ways that MOOCs neve had a shot at replacing it. Instead, it got swallowed up and and integrated with our existing educational system.

[0]https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674089044

Don't hate MOOCs.

They did not break the traditional learning way, but they help a LOT of people, me included, to learn new things.

Could I learn them otherwise, from books and web pages? Sure, but MOOCs help. Did I already attend a university before, so I can guess what MOOC is good and which one is BS? Sure. Are they much less effective than traditional university? Yes. Of course.

But, they are not useless and I am glad they exist, even when they were a bit overhyped in the past.

They're useful, but I could never see them replacing small-group teaching (1 PhD student/faculty member to 2-3 students), a standard feature of my university. It lets them focus on exactly what _you_ need at that time, and can pick up on weaknesses and misunderstandings you might not have even realised yourself.

I suspect that has more to do with the University’s role as gatekeeper to good jobs than any shortcoming in the tech.