I got a computer science degree in 3 months for less than $5000 (2020)

So, former WGU student here, though I hadn&#x27;t completed my degree.<p>Many WGU students HATE these types of articles, because they undermine the legitimacy of WGU.<p>WGU was not designed for traditional students, it was 100% designed for working professionals, where WGU will only admit you with a reasonable amount of experience in your field.<p>WGU is regionally accredited, not nationally, and it&#x27;s a non-profit. So it cannot be compared to University of Phoenix, ITT Tech, DeVry, etc.<p>It was founded by a group of governors out west, hence the name. They realized that there were many working adults who possessed a great depth of knowledge, from long working in their fields, yet they had no paper credentials to show for that knowledge.<p>Their model is competency-based, so you must demonstrate you posses knowledge in any given domain. If you can prove you do then you can test out right away, if you fail to then they offer a variety of resources to allow you to get up to par. In many cases classes are tied to obtaining industry certifications.<p>It&#x27;s not for everyone, but it is a far cry from a &quot;degree mill.&quot; Does it really matter if a person that has knowledge got it from sitting in a seat, paying ungodly amounts of tuition, or if they got it from life experience? As long as a bar is set, and you can meet it, then that should be what really matters.<p>Just my personal experience, from having attended the university. Unfortunately life sidetracked my completion, but I hope to return one day soon, and complete my program.

<i>&gt; On my first day, I completed 4 courses in the span of 4 hours. At a traditional school, it would have taken 4 months. It made me realize…I had underestimated how much knowledge I had gained from previous schools, jobs, projects, books, papers, and talks. </i><p>This passage underscores how, for this guy and whoever he was selling himself to, a CS degree was just a credential. He did not have much intention of actually learning anything. That’s (I believe) fundamentally different than most people who seek college degrees.

Some context on WGU<p>&gt; An audit by the Department of Education&#x27;s Office of Inspector General, released on September 21, 2017, &quot;concluded that Western Governors University did not comply with the institutional eligibility requirement that limits the percentage of regular students who may enroll in correspondence courses&quot; and that &quot;at least 69 of the 102 courses were not designed to offer regular and substantive interaction with an instructor and, therefore, did not meet the regulatory definition of distance education.&quot;<p>They later kept their federal loan eligibility but it sounds like it might have been a case where they skated by due to a lack of clear guidance.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Western_Governors_University" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Western_Governors_University</a>

I just put in a couple hours of studying @ WGU for Discrete Math II last night, and I&#x27;m happy that the school exists.<p>I spent months trying to get my brick-and-mortar to allow me to complete my B.S. remotely; I had dropped out after junior year for startup reasons.<p>Long story short, the idea that an adult working full time might want to complete their degree without dropping $65k wasn&#x27;t acceptable (of course COVID forced the university remote.)<p>Then my partner began a WGU Master&#x27;s program and told me about it.<p>Although I wasn&#x27;t able to transfer in most of my courses (older than 5 years), I was able to transfer a chunk of gen-eds. Now I&#x27;m slowly but surely working through the degree, diving much deeper into math topics than I ever did before.<p>I have the time to actually understand things instead of passing by the skin of my teeth. I also have the choice to skip a topic entirely if I know its contents.<p>It can be a slog, and there are times where it appears a gargantuan task. But I&#x27;m learning, and the challenge of doing it while working full time gives me great confidence.<p>Make sure you match with an excellent mentor to cheer you on while holding you accountable.<p>Now, some things to consider:<p>* I value the friends and shared experience I made @ brick-and-mortar university. This doesn&#x27;t replicate that at all.<p>* Prices, although relatively low, have risen.<p>* Self-motivation is critical.<p>* No detailed feedback on projects.<p>I appreciate it for what it is: a self-motivated, self-paced escape hatch for those who want to earn a degree, where your experience is valued, and your bank account is respected.

OP is a class act. I reached out to him the first time he posted this and he was really helpful with answering my questions. I applied then and am now one class away from finishing my Masters in Cybersecurity. I have 20 years experience in the field and am in a stable, well paying position that I don&#x27;t plan to leave. This was a vanity degree for me but I also wanted to learn something in the process. So I took my time an emersed myself in the course material even though I could have probably tested out of most courses within a few days. Like any school, WGU will allow you to get what you want out of it. You want a checkmark? WGU will allow you to can get that cheaper than anywhere else. You want to really learn and get credit for it? Then take your time and you wont be disappointed. Are you done learning after your degree? Nope, but as a lifelong learner my experience at WGU was great and am glad I went for it.

When I was in undergrad (20ish years ago) it was absolutely possible for a motivated student to graduate at a highly accelerated rate. I know someone who had approximately 5 semesters worth of classes done at the end of his freshman year, having taken about 40 credits worth of classes each semester (12 credits was considered &quot;full time&quot; and you needed to average slightly more than that per semester to graduate in 4 years in most degrees).<p>He was able to do this because:<p>1. Only foreign language classes and lab sciences had class-participation requirements<p>2. All classes published a syllabus so where possible he could start the major projects early<p>3. Most of the lower-division classes were a joke to a smart and motivated person anyways.<p>4. He convinced an academic advisor to sign off on it (this was arguably the hardest part).

I just graduated from WGU 2 days ago, after almost 20 years in the industry. I didn&#x27;t rush through it was quickly - I finished in just under a year. I studied finance my first time around in college and have tried to do a CS degree a few times since, but juggling a full-time job and now a family makes that tough. The flexibility the WGU program offered was honestly more important than the raw speed at which I could go through it.<p>Some of it was stuff I knew really well and only spent an hour or two on, some of it was filler (I now have ITIL v4 and Project+ certifications that were annoying to get and mostly useless?), and some of it was new and interesting (Discrete Math, Computer Architecture, etc..). Overall, it didn&#x27;t feel like markedly different curriculum from the in-person courses I took at other schools.<p>Aside from a few terrible classes (the AI course is just a horrendous waste of time), most of them were decent and I felt like I learned something from them. The overall curriculum is a little odd and probably not ideal for someone who has little programming experience. For example, the very first &quot;scripting and programming&quot; course uses C++ to build a simple command-line application, but then you never do anything with C++ again. What is the point of that? I understand how C++ can be useful in a learning context, but I don&#x27;t think a brief introduction to it really does any good. Two of the biggest courses are big JavaFX projects, which ughh.. fine, but I think there are probably more useful things to teach.<p>I understand that a CS degree is more about theory than getting job-related skills, but a few of the decisions made serve neither very well. So if I had one knock on the program, it is that someone who comes in with little programming experience is probably going to come out of it without having written much code that resembles what they&#x27;d be doing in a job.<p>Overall, it was a really good experience and it feels good to finally finish up after all these years. I am currently applying for the Georgia Tech OMSCS program, which is a common route for WGU graduates. That one is fairly rigorous and cannot be sped through, so looking at several more years for that, but at the end of it all, a BS + MS in Computer Science in around 5 years and under $20k total seems like a decent result?

Still sounds a bit lengthy to me.<p>What I would like to have is a topic approach one. It should be fully online with facilities for student communication such as Discord and online assignment&#x2F;project submission.<p>One example: let&#x27;s say I want to learn OS. The course chain will look like this: Programming class, Comp arch using C and assembly, Data structure, and then straight into OS.<p>In modern universities you can apply as independent students but the process is often a bit tedious. Also you have to go through a lot of red tapes just to remove some pre-requisite, e.g. as a Math student I don&#x27;t need Discrete math, and as a Data Engineer I don&#x27;t need the basic programming class at least, but in reality it&#x27;s really difficult to get these done easily, if at all.<p>Of course I can just go to say Berkeley and download their course materials and learn for free. I figured I&#x27;m not smart&#x2F;persistent enough to go through it on my own, so paying some $$ to get a proper learning platform is a better option. Really wish universities such as MIT or Berkeley has such options but I know it&#x27;s too much for them. Once they open the gate there will be too large a demand to handle.

I went to WGU for my BSIT. I didn&#x27;t learn much there, but the degree and certifications helped my job prospects. Spent about $10,000 going for 3 semesters (already had my AS from a community college), walked out with 13 certifications and a boost in pay from being headhunted within weeks.<p>I&#x27;ve had another job since then and am earning more still. I would say at least for IT degrees WGU is worth it. It gives you the sheet of paper HR needs to let you in through the door for cheap, plus a bunch of certs that helps your resume stand out. Not a bad deal if you have any autodidactive capability.

WGU BS &#x2F; MS Graduate here: I attended 3 other &quot;traditional, B&amp;M&quot; Uni&#x27;s in years past (~60 credits). I also attended a couple Community Colleges (16 credits).<p>I created a career in IT by getting a job (2000) and working full time over the years. I got certifications on my own that I transferred in for credit with WGU.<p>I have now been teaching full time in an IT program at a community college for 2 years and have also developed and manage 2 different MS level online classes for a traditional B&amp;M university you have definitely heard of.<p>I can tell you, unequivocally, that what I had to do to complete my degrees with WGU was more rigorous than what I am requiring my students to do now (not my choice ... chain of command). The grading was harder at WGU than what I am permitted to do now with my students in the CC and B&amp;M MS classes. I have now been on each side of the &quot;WGU is not legit&quot; argument. Anyone who thinks this is very wrong. No, it&#x27;s not Stanford or MIT, it&#x27;s not supposed to be ... though I&#x27;m sure grade inflation and special treatment happens at those places. There is no special treatment or grade inflation at WGU. You take a cert exam, take a test, or submit a paper to an unknown grader. You either pass or you don&#x27;t. Simple as that. If you know your stuff, move on. If you don&#x27;t ... learn it to move forward. It&#x27;s meritocracy at its best. That is NOT the traditional University way.<p>I would included the OP in this ... he states in the end of his blog post that &quot;The program is not the most rigorous.&quot; How does he know this having not attended other university recently? How does he know this not having developed or taught classes at other universities or colleges. He&#x27;s right about the clear value that can be attained from combining knowledge, experience and work ethic to a WGU degree. He&#x27;s wrong about the rigor.<p>IMO: WGU is not the place to LEARN, it&#x27;s the place you PROVE WHAT YOU KNOW.

This article was interesting to me because it helped me learn about WGU. I dropped out of college just one semester prior to graduating (and had a 3.7gpa at the time). I&#x27;ve had nearly two decades of experience in industry, and it&#x27;d be great to be able to get a degree at this point in my life just to get the credential to match my work experience. WGU seems like a really reasonable program for someone in my situation, compared to taking time off from work to go back to school or hoping I get famous enough someday to get an honorary degree.

Discussed at the time:<p><i>I prepared for a decade to graduate in CS in three months</i> - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25467900" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25467900</a> - Dec 2020 (374 comments)

I thought about going to WGU instead of a community college&#x2F;transferring to a private&#x2F;state school to earn my bachelors, but after starting to apply to WGU it literally seemed like a diploma mil to me. There would be WGU recruiters constantly calling me etc. and overall didn&#x27;t seem legit to me. So, I decided to go to school for 4-6 years instead.<p>I wonder if places like RenTech would hire someone with a degree from rentech. I think that the DoD hires folks with degrees from UoP, so I&#x27;m not surprised they would. I saw a few folks on Linkedin work at Amazon with degrees from WGU and on their website they list that a few students got accepted to grad programs to Harvard etc. [1].<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.uopeople.edu&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.uopeople.edu&#x2F;</a> WGU reminds me of the uopeople which is in the process of earning regional accreditation.<p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wgu.edu&#x2F;alumni&#x2F;career-support&#x2F;education-and-professional-paths.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wgu.edu&#x2F;alumni&#x2F;career-support&#x2F;education-and-prof...</a>

I have a background in academia and extensive experience interviewing for FAANG, particularly at the entry level. For me this article highlights the futility of current higher education institutions.<p>From our experience a degree is a mild indicator of performance when hiring at entry levels. We get some great candidates with no degree, and many poor candidates with degrees. Above entry level, the correlation pretty much disappear. I&#x27;m really curios what kind of difficulties OP was facing for not having a title.<p>I don&#x27;t think we have completely removed a title from our job posting requirements, but it usually uses one of those silly conversions (CS degree or x years of experience).<p>That makes me wonder, what value would Universities provide if a degree wasn&#x27;t a signifier anymore? what if all tech companies hired purely based on interview performance and ignored titles even for filtering? I imagine a future where all the knowledge and material is open and free on the internet, and University staff acts more as coaches and mentors, helping people who needs it in a 1-1 fashion. One can dream.

&gt; During my time at WGU, I focused on a single course at a time and made sure to complete it before starting a new one.<p>That sounds like a dream come true honestly.

Going to WGU now, it is exactly as advertised. Low friction, decent quality education at a low price.

I wonder what specific opportunities he felt he was missing out on. I&#x27;ve been working in software for 17 years without a degree and have never noticed the lack of a degree stopping me from anything. I&#x27;ve never had it come up during interviews.

I see a good number of commenters mention that they also went through the same program&#x2F;went through something similar.<p>I was wondering if getting the degree translated into any professional benefits? The conventional wisdom is that degrees don&#x27;t matter, but the author in this blog post says otherwise and they unfortunately have not written a follow-up. I personally have a degree, so don&#x27;t have perspective.

Interesting to see such polarizing opinions on education in the comments. The value of education is a mix of learning, credentials, and socialization - and the experience is different for each student. WGU makes a lot of sense for working professionals.

Data point of one: WGU&#x27;s credit transfer appraisers are comically incompetent<p>I wanted to complete a CS degree there, since I already have a lot of credits from elsewhere, which I officially transferred to WGU. But then they told me I can&#x27;t be in CS because I don&#x27;t have pre-Calculus completed. WAIT WHAT? Right there on my transcript, there are completed &#x27;MATH 460 Math Modeling&#x27; and &#x27;696 Applied Math Project&#x27; and &#x27;MATH 394 Probability and Statistics&#x27;, which all obviously cover pre-Calc, but no - the appraisers think I might not be able to handle Calculus I so they won&#x27;t let me go to CS (but I&#x27;m welcome to do some IT course).

If you already know how to code and you’ve already been working, what situations do you find yourself in where you need the piece of paper?<p>I’m in the same situation, self taught, dropout, been working for a nearly a decade—except no one has ever given a fuck.

I went to a bootcamp for 6 months for less than $20,000.

Dupe: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25467900" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25467900</a>

Bah, to be honest this seems a lot like a degree mill. I work as a SWE and I decided to apply yo a Bachelor&#x27;degree course in Computer Science at the University of Milan; that took me 4 years to complete. It doesn&#x27;t matter how well I was prepared in different subjects, since many courses required a lot of study and preparation. And the average time of completion os around 4 years, so...

Fwiw, another accredited online educational program, with interaction with others, is BYU Pathway Worldwide and associated programs. It requires a Church affiliation but not necessarily membership (I think). Tuition is much lower, vastly lower to students in poorer countries; it has accredited bachelors programs (through BYU-Idaho, but all online; like IT, business, others), and is also suitable for those who need to first become qualified for a university (like learning English, which is used in curriculum, and other basic skills), and then provides that university (and then tuition is again lower still, last I checked). I believe it also provides mentor-like contacts who encourage students to not give up. I think it is not self-paced, but has semesters.<p>More info is in Wikipedia: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;BYU_Pathway_Worldwide" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;BYU_Pathway_Worldwide</a><p>...and <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.byupathway.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.byupathway.org&#x2F;</a>

This is great - Incan imagine something like this for ongoing professional development - or like a refresher driving test you take every ten years.

I think a lot of people confuse Computer Science with SWE or something similar. A lot of universities and programs do a terrible job of explaining CS.<p>You will get some CS knowledge working in the field, but its akin to any field where someone can get by learning how to do X without understand the theoretical underpinnings of X. CS is the theory and study of computation. A trained computer scientist should be able to understand computation and information in terms of abstract models, the mathematics behind those models, and reason with those models. CS can be seen as something only tangentially related to physical computers, it is the academic study of problems and problem solving.<p>This is not something you can learn in less than a year of study. Anyone selling you a CS degree without making you take a theory of computation is also really doing you a disservice. A lot of people have a degree in CS these days who really lack the fundamentals of the <i>science</i> portion of CS.

We are all caught between the rock of &#x27;You should get this degree because you are serious about the actual theory of Computer Science&#x27; and the hard place of &#x27;the job this degree unlocks justifies whatever it takes to get what you need done.&#x27; I enjoy some CS theory(especially theory of computation!) and other nice things but hate school and will never go back. I got my degree in CS for the monetary benefits, not because I was heading in for an enjoyable academic safari.<p>I will also say, as this person appears to be only a bit older than myself(I would say OP is no older 30) it doesn&#x27;t shock me at all that they could have learned everything a degree would have taught you eventually just by reading things online. Other than some some algorithms(eg flow, more advanced trees) and some discrete math I can believe you&#x27;d hit on most of what a CS degree could offer, if you&#x27;re willing to find it for yourself that is...

The inclusion of industry certifications with the degree programs at no extra cost is interesting, do any &#x27;regular&#x27; colleges integrate certifications like this?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wgu.edu&#x2F;online-it-degrees&#x2F;it-certifications.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wgu.edu&#x2F;online-it-degrees&#x2F;it-certifications.html</a>

&gt; I wouldn’t say it was transformative. The bulk of the effort was memorizing things that I normally would have Googled.

Degrees are becoming more and more irrelevant with time. Skills eat degrees for lunch in computer science.

&quot;On the other hand, a compilers course and a programming languages course would have been welcome additions.&quot;<p>... this is not a CS degree. The author is crazy motivated, but this is more a reflection of the crumbling foundations of higher ed in the US.

I did the same thing. Got a Bachelors in CS in 1 term at WGU. Very happy with it, got a great job after graduation and I feel very well prepared for it.<p>I know this sounds really sketchy so here are my thoughts.<p>* Most undergraduate-level college courses (from any school) are stupid easy, especially 101-level classes. You could skip every lecture, spend 3 hours studying before the final exam and still pass with a B or better. This is what I did for 2 years at a traditional state school where I studied mechanical engineering. At WGU it is exactly the same, except you don&#x27;t need to wait until the end of the term to take the exam. You can schedule the final exam on day 1 of the term and then move on to the next course if you pass.<p>* It&#x27;s not that hard to get through a textbook quickly if you are disciplined. If there are 20 chapters, read 5 per day and you will finish in 4 days. On day 5 wake up early, take a practice test, review the questions you missed and re-read those sections, repeat 3-4 times and you should be scoring 80-90%, that&#x27;s a pass so schedule the final exam for that evening. After these 5 days of studying you will be better prepared than the average college student, who generally fucks around all term, shows up for lectures but doesn&#x27;t pay attention, and hardly reads the textbook at all, but somehow still passes.<p>* Lectures and videos are a waste of time, reading is more efficient<p>* It helps massively if you can study full time. I took out loans to pay the rent and tuition and didn&#x27;t work a side job. I studied 9-5 every day like it&#x27;s my full time job. I paid back my loans after 1 year of working.<p>* The hardest courses take 10-15 times as long as the easiest ones. Data Structures and Algorithms, Computer Architecture and Discrete Mathematics etc. are the big ones and this model lets you spend more time on that and less time on bullshit.<p>* Controversially, WGU makes sure you learn SQL really, really well and glosses over Linear Algebra. I find my SQL skills to be extremely useful on the job. I&#x27;ve since studied Linear Algebra on my own time, but I haven&#x27;t found any uses for it outside of my game development hobby.<p>* No, you can&#x27;t master a subject you spent 1 week studying. But that&#x27;s true of all undergraduate courses, not just WGU, which is why new grads struggle with basic leetcode questions unless they grind leetcode outside of school. In my opinion the purpose of a bachelor&#x27;s degree is to teach you the basics and bring you to the point where you can get an entry level job and study on your own, which WGU&#x27;s BSCS absolutely does do.<p>* Getting a degree in 3 months might seem impressive, but it&#x27;s not. The average college student might spend 4 years at school, but if you only count the time they are actually studying, it&#x27;s not going to be more than a couple of months. And when they do study, it&#x27;s not effective, it&#x27;s not goal oriented, they study out of obligation and fear of failure which leads to procrastination and burnout and all-nighters before exam day that aren&#x27;t very productive.

Would this be appropriate for someone fresh out of high school? The only concern I can think of is the lack of socialization, which is easier to address during high school than university.

Seems odd that speed limits on learning were(&#x2F;are) the norm at most top institutions. What purpose do they serve aside from being slightly more administratively convenient.

You can get CS degree level knowledge for free with <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cs1000.vercel.app" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cs1000.vercel.app</a>.

I’m trying to find a tech job after almost a decade of manual labor. After reading this story I thought WGU could be a great, non-traditional fit for me so I started the sign-up process. A few seconds after I filled out the first step of the sign-up (name, phone, email), they called me twice (real people, not automated) and texted me. I’m probably being too selective, but it was an off-putting experience.

Got a degree in clickbait headlines too, apparently :)

Do WGU accept international students? I just curious since I have 15+ years experience in programming, but having no degree of any kind does limit job options now when I had to immigrate.<p>Can anyone suggest some other options good to get a degree with reasonable price? I really dont mind studying, but I certainly dont have several years and tons of money to go to traditional university.

I&#x27;m in Australia, I got my degree in almost half the time since I already had experience in the field from working as a developer. Some of the fees are per subject, and some per semester. I had to pay the former like everyone else, but saved on the latter due to the fact that I stayed for a shorter time.

&gt; They confirmed everything I had read and told me that although they didn’t officially accept foreign students (I’m Canadian), they would try to make an exception.<p>Wait, aren&#x27;t Canadian universities very affordable? Is the problem lack of university spots for students?

&gt;If necessary, many of these shortcomings can be offset by using the 3+ years you’ve saved to do an Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS) at Georgia Tech (&lt;$10,000).<p>Could someone elaborate on what this part means?

A number of MIT courses were like that. You had to pass six calculus tests per course. If you were exposed to the material before, you could do this in a couple days.

Has anyone done this kind of program for a Master&#x27;s in Education? Wondering how fast an M.Ed. can be gotten.

As someone who teachers at a university, the level of courses at WGU is absurdly low. I looked at the algorithms courses, the discrete math courses, and the AI course.<p>These would not be acceptable in any CS department that I know. The material and exams are at the level of a high school education, nothing more.<p>You got a piece of paper. You did not get a CS education.<p>There are bootcamps that are much higher quality than this.

I wonder how the author tracked their time with that level of granularity.

Cool! If you don&#x27;t want it any more, I will give you $3500 for it!

you can get a 4 year degree in europe for $500. but, you only have a 0.5% chance of getting through your first year. that is the flip side.

Something that has always bothered me about STEM degrees in the US is the requirement for about a year of non-STEM coursework as a degree granting requirement. I think this is ridiculous.<p>Sure, yes, general education is important. And this is what secondary education should be for. The idea of consuming a year (or more!) of someone&#x27;s time while pursuing a STEM degree on such coursework is, in my opinion, deeply misguided.<p>This is particularly true in a systems where a student is paying from $30K to $60K per year for this education. Sorry, but, if I have to spent $50K per year the last thing I want to do is burn it on course work that is utterly irrelevant.<p>Taken a different way, this means that a STEM Bachelors in the US could be completed in three, rather than four years. That is huge. That means higher graduation rates and people available to work faster.<p>That does not mean that nobody would or should take these courses. If someone is interested in sociology, history or political science, by all means, provide the courses as electives --not as graduation requirements.<p>Let&#x27;s be free market and let the market decide. You can stipulate that a student must take five electives to graduate. These electives are not on forced subjects. You can take more STEM courses or choose to go into non-STEM classes (geography, world history, business, whatever).<p>Yes, this would likely reposition some of the stuff nobody cares about. And that&#x27;s the right way to do it. If you have to pay back $200K to $300K in student loans, the system should not force you to burn 1&#x2F;4 of that cash on bullshit no company is ever going to pay you for.<p>I truly think this is one of the great injustices, and maybe even the tyranny, of a system that, in my opinion isn&#x27;t connected to reality at all. These non-STEM courses are cheap (in terms of the cost of offering them) courses that universities stuff into the student&#x27;s shopping cart. The profit margin on these is probably outstanding when compared to some of the other subjects (for example, Chemistry requires labs; Robotics requires machine shops, tools, etc.).<p>From a competitive perspective, any nation that can focus their STEM degrees strictly around STEM to graduate people with the same capabilities as the US in 3 years rather than 4 is going to have an advantage over the long run. Not only are out graduates absolutely saddled with ridiculous debt, they have to invest another year or more for the same job-relevant education. Like I said above, no company is going to pay someone for that shit.<p>Sadly, I don&#x27;t think this will ever change. There is no political value in going after this issue. If politicians can&#x27;t use something to their benefit, it gets no attention at all.

Buying a diploma is not really a bragging point.

Doubt

sorry to hear you got scammed out of $5000 &#x2F;:

Ok, you got a degree in 3 months. But, did you actually learn anything? Did courses prepare you for the world outside?

Degrees are only worth anything with the backing of a good university. This course isn&#x27;t accredited.<p>Additionally, he transferred in a bunch of credit from elsewhere, and had watched multiple MIT lectures, so it&#x27;s hardly 3 months of effort.

Pffft. Big deal. You can buy one online for $100 without ANY classes. You got ripped off.

Does anyone reasonable and with an internet connectt really believe they can get sonething of substance (e.g., CS degree) for relatively nothing ($5k)? That&#x27;s not how the world works. Anywhere. Anytime.<p>Who was that said there&#x27;s a sucker born every day?