[m0dc]

At what point does it make sense for Google-likes to educate their own workforce, skipping the university model entirely? They've already created a B.A. substitute by sponsoring Udacity's nanodegree programs, and now they're working on the other end of the spectrum with a masters / PhD equivalent.

Assume these companies have an excellent selection process (obviously a big 'if'). Could they pluck bright students straight out of high school, send them to two years of specialized super-accelerated Google School, and have a molded and productive employee come out the other side? They have the resources and the expertise, and there's only so many Stanford grads each year.

A workforce of bootcamp devs sounds unpleasant - but with skyrocketing tuition costs, and ever-increasing demand for 'only the best' talent at these companies, there's probably a point at which it makes economic sense for both employer and employee.

[awch]

Would it be possible for companies to eventually become accredited?

Or, alternatively, would the preponderance of nanodegree programs and "Google Schools" diminish the value of a traditional degree to the point that accreditation would be unnecessary?

[neovive]

I agree that the increasing investment and quality of alternative higher education models will diminish the role of traditional accreditation agencies to some degree. However, there will always be some need for some third-party oversight to ensure educational institutions are delivering what they advertise.

[arikrak]

They also just announced a programming bootcamp the other day.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-22/google-lau...

[ForHackernews]

> At what point does it make sense for Google-likes to educate their own workforce, skipping the university model entirely?

Never. You may be too young to remember this, but it used to be very common for companies to hire employees and then train them to do the jobs the company needed done.

Eventually, companies realized that it was much more cost-effective to foist off the expense of training onto employees themselves (and, indirectly onto taxpayers through federal financial aid) so it's become rare for companies to have any kind of formal training program. They expect potential employees to go heavily into debt training themselves, and then hope to find somebody who is already trained for their exact job role.

Google is no different from other companies in this regard: Training people is expensive, and if they can avoid that expense, they will avoid it.