'Education', K-12, college, and later, is pushed and shoved by several large influences.

As in this thread, two of the influences are (1) employers want some 'criteria', maybe even 'credentials', that will simplify selecting promising employees and (2) students seeking jobs want to keep down the costs in time, money, and effort to meet such 'criteria' or to get such 'credentials'.

Broadly there should be some 'market forces' that provide answers: (1) If the education employers want is expensive, then employers will have to pay employees enough to pay for the education; (2) if the education costs more than it is worth to the employers, then students and employers will make do with less such education; (3) if students don't come for the education, then some educational institutions will have to make some changes to offer the students more value for the costs.

Such 'market force' influences are easy to see, but there are some other large influences less easy to see:

In the US, the 900 pound gorilla is the interest of Congress and the US DoD in technology for US national security.

Such was not always the case: Indeed, during the rapid rise of engineering in the decades before WWII, schools of engineering actually concentrated on teaching engineering for students seeking careers in engineering! Amazing! Radical! Astounding!

Then we had WWII and radar, sonar, and the bomb, right, the atomic bomb, and Ike and other influentials concluded that "Never again will US academics be permitted to operate independently of the US military" or some such. Congress went along, that is, pulled out the US national checkbook, and started signing.

Then the top three dozen US research universities got an offer they couldn't refuse: Take the US Federal money for research in math, physical science, and engineering, with a tilt toward what might be useful for US national security, or cease to be a leading research university. They took the money!

Now, for such a university, for the money, the most important activity on campus is research, research, and research as in "How do I get a grant?", especially, now, from the NSF, DoE (that is, energy, not education!), or DARPA. Since then Congress has also provided money to the NIH and its grants -- you see, there are a lot of old people in Congress eager to see progress on some of the serious diseases of old age and ..., well you can see the connection!

Now for this 'research', there are some examples and, now, a 'model': The most influential example, for both science and US national security, is physics, especially as for the bomb, right, the atomic bomb and now, too, the hydrogen bomb. So, 'research' has a really severe case of 'physics envy', especially theoretical and mathematical physics envy. So, good 'research' is supposed to 'mathematize' a field.

So, at top three dozen US research universities, math, physical science, and engineering pursue research, research, and research with physics envy.

Yes, there was that report, yes, the David Report, that said that some of math was, well, not so applicable so soon and should, then, maybe get less money. That's why now at some of the research universities the math department has trouble keeping the lights on but is still working on the analytic-algebraic topology of the locally Euclidean metrization of infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifolds (extra credit for the source!). Math is still the most respected field, but for some decades more applicable topics in math -- e.g., probability, stochastic processes, optimization, statistics, control theory, signal processing, numerical analysis, computational fluid dynamics, computational complexity, math for finance, math for theoretical physics -- has been done outside the 'pure' math departments.

Now it turns out that somehow some huge fraction of good students are really eager to get their bachelor's degrees from such research universities. So, the universities can be very 'selective' so that employers can get some of the 'criteria' they want just by a student being admitted to such a university!

But the students are being taught mostly just by professors interested mostly just in narrow, leading edge research to get grants. So, the education is not really about, say, engineering for engineering students who want jobs in engineering! Instead, in, say, computer science, the education might be closer to background for research in 'the fundamentals of computing', not that we really know what they are but some people would like to!

How to work through the security model of SQL Server for SQL Server installation, administration, and management? Professors can't get grants for mud wrestling with the messed up SQL Server security model or its just awful documentation and terrible problems with installation, management, and administration and, thus, mostly DON'T! So if someone actually wants actually to actually work with an actual, real installation of SQL Server for a real, actual, important, practical database application, in the real world, outside of academics, as part of a career, that can pay enough to buy a house and support a family, then the professors in a research university are not a very direct sources of such information!

Still good students like to go to research universities.

Then there is the money, that is, what the universities charge. So, tuition has gone up, way up, over the last few decades, up faster than even health care! Why? Well, there's a dirty little secret! What has gone up is the published, 'list price'! But there are also 'discounts', especially for good students, called 'scholarships'! So, if the student's father is wealthy and the student only so-so as a student, then go ahead and charge list price! While this student pays list price, they can also do well in their studies in beer and bed! But for a really good student, especially with poor parents, there are scholarships.

In the US, there are also many colleges and universities that don't try to be top research universities and concentrate on teaching.

And there are many community colleges where 'job training' is the goal and not a dirty word and where there are courses in auto repair, auto body repair, framing carpentry, finish carpentry, masonry, cosmetology, plumbing, electricity, HVAC, and, yes, computer programming and network management. Tuition is low; the courses are fully intended to be practical; the teachers are not researchers and are often practitioners.

For computer science, there is a secret: The more advanced parts of computer science have been heavily 'mathematized'. So, net, the best background for such material actually is not even in the computer science department but in the math department, especially a course in, say, abstract algebra.

Next, for a career, e.g., in computing, there is now a big, dark, ugly secret: 'Jobs' are no longer such a good idea! E.g., the Stanford AI course got interest from 50,000 students in 175 countries! So, generally, if take some material in college and look for a job, then here in the US, both you and your employer will be competing with thousands of eager people in 175 foreign countries!

Meanwhile here in the US the people buying houses and getting their children through college will, may I have the envelope, please? Yes, here it is: Often they will own their own Main Street business where they have a geographical barrier to entry and, thus, no competition more than, say, 100 miles away. In particular they will have no competition from anyone in any of those 175 foreign countries.

So, what future for computing in the US? Broadly, gotta do something new, out there, on the leading edge in at least some respect, something entrepreneurial, something you can't get hired for because the guy hiring doesn't understand that new thing yet. So, have to be an entrepreneur. For that, something in advanced computing might help. Then, just getting 'skills' with, say, Linux, C++, Java, Python, MySQL, SQL Server, Flash, HTML5, etc. is 'routine', maybe at some point necessary but not sufficient.

Just what should such new stuff be and just how to get help from a research university? No one really knows! Welcome to the challenge of the future!