[greenyoda]

"To turn this around, why should businesses pay former students to learn about this on the job instead of paying them to be productive?"

Because it's expected that entry-level employees don't have a lot of experience. It's even possible that these young people have taught themselves all sorts of useful things on their own already, but haven't gotten around to teaching themselves version control or the particular database system or development environment that your company uses. I think it's a better investment to hire someone who is smart and a fast learner than it is to hire someone who happens to know the particular tools you currently use.

In the software field, we've somehow decided that it's normal for entry-level employees to have lots of practical experience. But in most other jobs, that's not the case: they learn at their employers' expense. How many new hires on Wall Street have ever used a bond trader's workstation? How many newly-hired railroad employees have ever driven a train? How many newly-hired lawyers have ever represented a client in court?