The students also get an education in history, philosophy, economics, policy, etc, that help them become more rounded individuals, and to some extent, engineers who understand the impact of their work on society a lot more.

While, I support trade schools for SE, they don't provide a "complete" education.

To my knowledge, it's only really the U.S and maybe Canada that do the whole rounded education thing. In the U.K, Ireland, and what I've seen on eunicas, the degree is focused on a single subject.

Oh we understand the professor and academia perspective, we also understand how that is divorced from reality.

Higher education was always for elitists that had the privilege and time to pursue "complete" education. Everyone else just got a job, they went to trade school or had an apprenticeship or just less specialized work. A lot of that kind of work - briefly in history and into the present - required having a degree. Software engineering is not one of those.

So don't get it twisted. People that want to pursue a complete education because they are interested in the subject can keep going to academia. For everyone else, it is a waste of time, software engineering trade schools are cheaper, faster and good enough.