Michael Horn outlines five scenarios where coding bootcamps might disrupt higher education, from staying niche to expanding into non-tech fields and lifelong learning. The Clayton Christensen Institute paper "Betting on Boot Camps" maps how federal aid, employer demand, and bootcamp evolution could reshape the college landscape.
In my latest piece for Forbes, I asked the question, could boot camps last mile training providers that train people in coding and other fields, can they disrupt colleges and universities? It's an interesting question. Ryan Craig, the noted author and investor, certainly thinks that the answer is yes. But a recent paper by Alana Dunnigan and Richard Price of the Clayton Christensen Institute called Betting on boot Camps digs into the question and gives a little bit more nuance. And so in my Forbes blog I talk about five scenarios that could unf that could lead to disruption or might stall it, and we don't see the disruption occur. Scenario one is that the boot camps just don't expand beyond what they're doing and they don't gain the traction with employers needed to actually disrupt colleges and universities. Scenario two is that Republicans and Democrats alike right now are really interested in extending federal financial aid to boot camps. This could be a thing that expands access so that boot camps start serving many more students from low income backgrounds and the like than they do today. But it could also reinforce a lot of the existing negative incentives that are in place to just serve students regardless of the quality, which would probably backfire and mean no disruption. Scenario three, a disruption story where boot camps actually extend into lifelong learning and start serving students not just to get them into their first job, but then to stay with them and upskill them throughout their careers. Scenario four would also be a disruption story, maybe even more so because boot camps would expand beyond just technology fields into other fields where there is significant demand for workers but limited supply of qualified ones currently. And then scenario five is the mega story of disruption where a combination of scenarios three and four occur. Basically, boot camps expand beyond technology and they expand up the stack to serve students throughout their lives. And in that scenario, colleges and universities beware because you would see a lot of disruptive innovation. What will happen we certainly don't know, but it's certainly worth keeping an eye on.
