What a programmer centric view. 99+% of people are not programmers. You want to be in any other STEM job you need a university degree(s). Almost any reasonable paying job other than programmer require actual training and education.
* 80% fewer lawyer jobs because algorithmic contracts will kill the rest of the lawyer jobs that e-doc review didn't kill already. The 20% that remain will be lawyers/programmers.
* 80% fewer medical doctor jobs because all surgery will be done by robots because it's safer, radiology will be automated because it's more accurate, and most diagnoses will be automated through DNA analysis and readings from wearables. Doctors will need training in presenting (quite possibly bad news) results to patients and training to run the machines. The 20% that remain will be doctors/programmers.
* 80% fewer jobs in "driving vehicles" or "packing things" (truckers, factory workers, Uber drivers) because self driving cars will be mature 20 years from now.
* Restaurant jobs will still be around. But the cooking will be automated for 80% of the food sold in America.
* Business process automation paired with private equity firms and competition from startups will automate away a surprising amount of managerial roles.
* 80% fewer retail jobs because Amazon has helped make it so you can just walk in and pick something up and walk out and be charged for it, without any human involvement.
20 years is the difference between 1994 and 2014. I might be wrong about some of it, but I think people underestimate how much the job landscape is going to change and how important of a skill "programming" (which means a lot of different things) will be. Everyone should learn to program. And basic income, but that's a whole different can of worms.
Interesting; this contrasts with the claim of liberal arts graduates who maintain that simply being competent critical thinkers is all that's required for almost any job.
Programming requires “training and education”, too.
But for many jobs, especially if you have connections that let you bypass filters designed to winnow the applicant field down to a manageable number that throw out lots of otherwise-atrocious candidates, you can demonstrate that other than by the degree that is “expected” for the field.
Computing is by no means unique in this respect (and the big players in computing are as much known for near-total exclusive preference for top schools as is the case in the worst of other fields.)
Are you implying that you don't need skill and knowledge to program?
Or that it's impossible to get skill and knowledge needed in "other reasonable paying jobs" mostly outside of formal education industry?