Dive Brief:
- A tuition-free French coding academy, 42, has opened in the United States, bringing self-starting professional learning to America's growing culture of higher education disruption.
- The academy features no formal instructors and assigns students coding and software development projects which allow them to conceptualize and develop with only information available on the Internet and peer consultation.
- Skeptics say the school puts students a learning disadvantage, suggesting they won't fully understand technical theory or practice without professional oversight. 42 owners say the school will disrupt education in the way Facebook did communication.
Dive Insight:
42 is the ultimate example of higher education disruption, in the sense that there is little overhead for the ability to credential professionals in a competitive growing industry like software development. It is the kind of education that many students will look to take advantage of, moreso than MOOCs, which only bring the Socratic method of teaching to digital space.
College leaders may not have to worry about a free coding academy siphoning students away, but they will have to be concerned with other models which will admit and credential students in a variety of industries, for a job market that is decreasing in concern about degrees and increasingly more interested in professional ability to do a job.
