I think the issue being criticized isn't about credentials, which smart companies don't care much about already, but about ability to learn. Your oversimplification of equivalent education being to just watch a free series of videos and get graded on a project has the same flavor as just telling people to teach themselves.

I mean, learning on your own is certainly a thing, especially in our field. My own beginnings were self-taught from a book. But structured environments are important, too, and for many people the only chance they'll have of learning something, because they can't or won't otherwise. Does the "cost" (which we're calling a flat $X as if it were paid upfront, ignoring the ISA details) have to be so high for these bootcamps? Probably not, but if you're going to attempt to replicate something like a structured experience, your costs aren't going to be nothing. But that's beside the point, since in the style of "charge more" advice from startup founders, if you're trying to build a business, your cost is what the market lets you get away with, not what some randos on the internet not in your target customer base think is "fair".

>has the same flavor as just telling people to teach themselves

Worked for me.

Noting bad happens if you open up VS code and write bad Python. I wanted to make games with my friends, subsequently I learned enough to get an entry level job.

What about the Odin project, that's free. Coursera is very inexpensive.

I'd advise at least trying that before blowing 30k. Particularly if these bootcamps are fudging placement numbers.

I agree, it happens, and it's a good idea for people to at least dip their toes in the seemingly infinite free or low cost resources out there to gauge things before spending very much money. (Again ignoring that the whole premise of these ISAs is that you don't spend money except under some reasonable "win" conditions.) But lots of people don't do that. Lots of people can't, even, though with some structure some of them can learn and be as or even more competent than those who took a mostly self-taught immediate-goal route, or self-taught-with-formal-supplementation. Seeing how little pre-college programming experience matters vs. coming in with no programming knowledge is an interesting lesson of doing college. Learning programming is actually complicated, what works for you is not going to work for everyone.

> Seeing how little pre-college programming experience matters vs. coming in with no programming knowledge is an interesting lesson of doing college.

Wait what do you mean by this? I started programming in 6th grade (after begging my dad for a month to spend $50 on a Java textbook) and so the CS portions of college was incredibly easy. When I didn't understand algorithms I just implemented them and learned by doing (and I instantly understood how they could be applied to past projects). I would show up to classes only on the midterm and final days because it was such a headstart. I mostly focused on the humanities because there's nothing the computer science department could teach me that I couldn't teach myself online.

I'm saying on average such experience tends to wash out, at least among those who graduate, though I saw it in individuals by sophomore year. You have two groups, one with some level of pre-college experience, and the other without (not even a HS programming class, though those with basically just that but not any personal learning are an interesting middle ground with parallels to 9-5 employee types that treat programming as just a job). Both groups have those who find the material easy overall (though the second will likely attend lectures; but these days the first too because attendance is mandatory at many places) and both groups have those who struggle on some things and must work and as a side-effect improve their general learning-to-learn abilities. (My own experience was a mix of both depending on the class despite having a general head start where I began in 8th grade with a book and a website dream.) By the end you'll see similar distributions with respect to measures like grades or time-to-complete-assignment or job placement and success, the starting buffs wash out.

Admittedly my sampling is unscientific, and I'm willing to believe pre-college experience can help avoid some of the culling that happens, and it was especially useful to me to land a mostly part time job that wasn't an internship. I also may be biased by my choice of school where most my data comes from (though talking to coworkers and interns from various other schools at my job after college contributed) because my school was a lot more hard-core in terms of course load and especially in later years project focus -- the number of required CS courses typically exceeded other schools known for good CS programs like, say, Stanford, with 5 or 6 overall courses per semester rather than a more common 3-4, unless you did it in 5 years instead of 4.

> As far as I'm concerned, that's more than enough to at least give someone an interview

Are you a person who interviews? If not your opinion is of little weight. If you do hire people I’m sure if you advertise your policy you’ll get lots of people who will be happy to try their luck.

I think the issue is that there is demand for a reputable (hirable) $3,000-30,000 program which can teach you to program in less time and/or more flexible schedule than traditional university.

I think one good solution is Western Governor’s University which falls in that price range and is extremely flexible on timeline.

But honestly there are a lot of students who want high quality intensive instruction but cannot attend a top-10/20 university. It’s very very hard for most people to find high quality learning outside of those programs unless you get extremely lucky to be in the Bay Area or at a company which can provide an environment full of experts to learn from.