I'm sort of baffled why everyone is so hating on the traditional university education model these days... there must be some zeitgeist thing that I'm simply not plugged into.

The average cost of a 4-year college education is $128,000.

There are people who believe that cost has exceeded the value, and university is not worth going six figures in debt for.

I think the central point of Jeffrey McManus's argument is that most students want to learn software engineering, not computer science.

They'd rather leave college with some practical knowledge.

One of my meta-issues with universities is that they're one of the least reformable institutions in our society -- even less so than Congress, since congressmen can at least be removed from office by voters or for illegal conduct. Not so with professors.

As a result universities are decades behind the curve in certain key areas. Software engineering is just one area. In the post I called out another (water management, which comes from Mark Taylor's book).

Perhaps universities can only be reformed by outside competition?

I see your point about water management.