[berrow]

Formal CS education has many merits, but listening to the interview made me realize that aptitude, motivation and a conducive training environment can go an incredibly long way in producing competent developers. Countries like India have very large populations to draw on and the seed costs there for such an approach are very low. I am not sure if the same method would work so well in 'developed' countries where there is such a strong 'you need a degree' mindset.

[wmf]

There's probably a big market in the US for efficiently retraining college graduates who got the wrong degree (as long as they can swallow their pride).

[InclinedPlane]

There's probably a big market in the US for efficiently retraining college graduates who got the "right" degree (especially CS).