The longer I've been on here, the more I've come to see "Disruption" mean "I truly have no idea how complex and regulated and culturally cemented an industry is

The longer I've been on here, the more I've come to see "Disruption" mean "I truly have no idea how complex and regulated and culturally cemented an industry is, but I work in software and my only limit is imagination." No educational system will ever supplant higher education as we know it today, as we have known it for hundreds of years. The only discussion here is about the degree of tweaks. When you grow up in a family of university administrators and scientists and faculty, and then work for a university as professional staff, you realize how laughable most outsiders' naive perspectives are, from the idea that a proper university can be run like a business (ha), or that people will rationally select a college that gives them the best bang for their buck (haha), or that educational complements like boot camps and MOOCS will ever replace what higher education offers (hahahahaha). While we're toiling away at our degrees, we often argue that it's just "a piece of paper." But that piece of paper matters. Unless you have a lot of paid work exprience, the inexperienced Ivy grad wins out to the mildly experienced community college grad almost every time. Yes, it's a shitty system but to change it you need to change global culture, maybe even human nature. As far as boot camps go, they're a good idea but even if you pass one with flying colors and could make an iOS app with one hand and a Rails server with another, the perception is still that you're somehow less qualified than a college graduate. Again, it sucks, but a hiring manager is going to ask themselves whether they could get blamed more for hiring a college grad that turns out to suck at their job, or a boot camp graduate that turns out to suck at their job. Honestly, if you really want to "disrupt" education, you're barking up the wrong tree. The best education is a good job. The best people to teach you how to do your job are the ones doing it with you. I firmly believe that the best way to provide good jobs and valuable skills is to heavily promote - and perhaps even subsidize - paid apprenticeships. Nothing says "I am worth paying $X for this job" like a resume that says "I was paid $X for this job."