[catwind7]

> One may argue that a motivated and smart student can overcome such obstacles and get her foot in the door by attending such schools. But then the challenge is flipped: not many such students need to attend such schools.

i guess it question is is there enough such students who can overcome these obstacles who are also willing to fork over X tuition? they may not need it per-se, but I think you may be discounting the value of the pre-existing networking leverage these schools have over individuals that may have no network in data science related work