I take issue with your idea that it is "tier 2+" that are the only programs that are worth it. When you make statements like that, or prognostications of that nature, you have to think about how it actually is in reality and not as the kinds of base opinions that are found in Reddit CS careers subs. I think this varies widely for employers and even within teams of large employers, depending on who is the person doing the hiring. Even at a simplistic level having a degree from a regionally accredited institutions will decide whether you pass the first HR screen, so it cannot be equivalent to no credential at all.

This just fails a basic real world sensibility test. Are you saying a CS grade from Montana State University that is a hiring manager at FAANG (maybe even the most famous one) is going to consider someone with a degree from Stevens or Florida Institute of Technology to be equivalent to someone without a degree? I don't know if you are aware but there many people employed CS grads that did not attend the top 3. Also, I don't know about tiers, but these rankings are largely based on research and not quality of undergraduate program or outcomes.

The idea of telling someone that doesn't have a degree that wants to know of if attaining a degree could likely help their career that they should not go if it is not "tier 2+," whatever that is, is just kind of malpractice. Georgia Tech is not the only school that offers such a degree that is equivalent to their in-person program. I would agree that you should choose a school that has a traditional program for which this online program is just a different modality, rather than one of these online-only predatory type of schools.

The competitive landscape in 2025 is not like it has ever been before for CS grads - and I graduated in 1996.

It would be “malpractice” to suggest anyone waste time on a CS degree from anything less than tier 2+ school. My degree is from a no name state college so I’m definitely not looking down on anyone.

That’s just conjecture without evidence. You have a degree so you’ve never experienced being turned down for not having one.

It’s not “conjecture” that today’s job market is worse for CS grads than it has been at any time since I graduated and you need every competitive advantage you can get. Doors aren’t going to open for you because you got a degree from WGU, Devry or some no name state college.

I can't tell whether this is intentionally or unintentionally hilarious because you add an additional conjecture with no evidence immediately afterwards. My experience would lead me to think that any accredited degree vs no degree would be an advantage, but I don't present it as fact, as you just did.

>Georgia Tech is not the only school that offers such a degree that is equivalent to their in-person program.

This, most state schools in most states offer such degrees now and have years now.

1. no. My CS fundamentals could always use work, but I know enough to know how to improve them on my own if and when I need to.

2. yes. this could just be my cynicism talking though.

I'm not looking at any unaccredited program. I already have one of those under my belt.

There are things you know, things you don't know, and things you don't know you don't know.

College is pretty good about the last category, but really if you went through syllabi, scanned through lecture notes, and paged through the reading materials listed, you're probably ahead of most students in that category.

That exercise alone will probably give you a good idea of the technical value of the education.

I would add that words don't have objective complete meanings. Words are indirect references to ideas and ideas are like raw marble in your head, carved into meaningful shapes by working with and manipulating those ideas.

If you bring out a word like "consistency", college is very much about shaping the idea behind that word into increasingly more crisp and formal meanings, especially meanings that can then interact with ideas behind other words like "atomicity" or "scale".

Even for someone with a degree in philosophy I think the last couple paragraphs are over-thinking things a lot here. I have never heard university described that way. The Rumsfeld thing about "unknowns unknowns" is clever I guess. :)

Your answer to 1 troubles me. A CS degree program greatly expands your toolbox BEFORE you need those tools. The problem I have with "when I need to" is how do you know now is the time? It's a chicken-and-egg thing. If an employer hears "I'll go learn that and get back to you" too often, you will not work there for long.

For 2, fair enough. What school will give you a BS degree for <15K?

I think you may be undervaluing effort and payoff of CS fundamentals, as well as overestimating payoff of the paper from an online degree.

(Caveat: If you'll be emigrating in the future a degree can make a difference for visas if recognized )

If you do it and actually apply yourself (as opposed to optimizing for points/effort) I guess you'll be on the up regardless of which (:

I wasn't undervaluing it. I was just answering the question. I've spent a lot of time on CS fundamentals. I can't say I've used a binary search tree in my every day work. If I anticipate this type of question in an interview, I'll need to go back and review. Thats all I meant.

They aren't talking about leetcode: https://teachyourselfcs.com/