I think MOOC's fill that niche. In some ways, 4-year university is actually the ideal place, because it allows you to to spend four years traversing a conceptu

I think MOOC's fill that niche. In some ways, 4-year university is actually the ideal place, because it allows you to to spend four years traversing a conceptual dependency graph in parallel without making it your life. Assuming you're not just partying it away, you're getting a bunch of other valuable skills, personal growth, network, etc. out of those 4 years. I think MOOC's are the cheaper option. Bootcamps, even at 6 months, have an issue that it's really not enough time to cover basic algorithms, basic systems programming, basic circuit design, linear algebra and graph theory, advanced algorithms, then finally specialized topics. It's just too much and too subtle to blitz through. But MOOC's don't have that limitation.