> If they don't get picked up by IBM, they're still very young with highly sought after skills that they could either use at another job or go onto a 4 year pr

> If they don't get picked up by IBM, they're still very young with highly sought after skills that they could either use at another job or go onto a 4 year program. I think that may be assuming quite a bit about what skills they have acquired. This puts IBM in a position to teach the students IBM-specific technologies, making them more valuable to IBM while not adding to their value to non-IBM players. Compared to nothing, it's a decent deal. Compared to the prospect of an education not controlled by a single company, it's perhaps not such a great deal.