I 100% share your concerns. What you and I hate is the predatory, indenturing nature of for-profit colleges that don't provide marketable skills--what currently

I 100% share your concerns. What you and I hate is the predatory, indenturing nature of for-profit colleges that don't provide marketable skills--what currently exists. The certificate from UoP, Coursera, or the receipt from a Ruby on Rails book all have the same market value when applying for a job, but I hope everyone here has bought and got value from a tech book. I honestly don't know what makes universities work. Their "mission" to educate in the US has definitely crept towards for-profit. Seeing endowments grow multiple times over but their student body stay the same size. Over the past few decades they've teased by publishing course materials online, but have usually been very protective. I can't imagine this not changing over the next few decades. Like you point out, entry level stuff scales really well. Maybe "graduate level" material costs a premium or its a loss-leader as a way add prestige? University undergrad often has "filter classes" which always seemed like a money grab because otherwise their admissions and onboarding departments aren't doing their job. Graduate classes were always much smaller and hard for people to afford.