In what way? I've worked in a few industry research labs (Bay Area and elsewhere), and while they are mostly staffed with Computer Science PhDs, there are always some folks without. As long as you can produce most shops don't seem to care about the degree.
Worse, even if they were tenure positions, the compensation is still out of line with industry. Mind you, there will be a subset of people that will be fine with that as long as they have the ability to do research.
Having a PhD does not make you a good teacher (which is what this capacity problem is about (it's about a lack of teaching capacity for undergraduates)). There are many good adjunct faculty, instructors, and gasp, yes, even assistant professors with just a masters degree teaching undergraduate college level computer science at institutions like community colleges, teaching oriented 4-year colleges, and universities with an open mind. I know because I am one of them and I know several others. It is rather rare, and sure you wouldn't hire us to be research faculty, but excluding people who lack a research credential (PhD), but who have a proven track record of successful teaching (perhaps through starting as an adjunct) from teaching is very ivory tower...
I'm not at all against colleges and trade schools, they have their place, but I don't agree that we should turn our universities into into them. It's perfectly fine to have a separation. Traditionally colleges and trade schools have been focused on training a workforce, and universities have been places to go to get a broader, but not necessarily trade focused education.
There are many other complaints about university education that essentially boil down to people wishing they were trade schools. E.g. why don't they teach popular industry language X? Why don't they teach unit testing, agile programming, etc?
Without having research faculty doing the teaching, I think you lose what traditionally has been the strength of a university education: teachers with state of the art knowledge teaching people to push the boundaries of how they think.
Also what you will find the is in research focused universities, the "leading edge" researchers you cite teach very few classes. Many of them teach no classes or one or two a year. Hence the problem that this thread began with regarding load. The fact is these classes are being taught by graduate students or adjuncts when the student population would be better served by full time teaching-focused faculty.
[ABET's criteria for faculty qualifications: http://www.abet.org/accreditation/accreditation-criteria/cri...]
>The program must demonstrate that the faculty members are of sufficient number and they have the competencies to cover all of the curricular areas of the program. There must be sufficient faculty to accommodate adequate levels of student-faculty interaction, student advising and counseling, university service activities, professional development, and interactions with industrial and professional practitioners, as well as employers of students.
>The program faculty must have appropriate qualifications and must have and demonstrate sufficient authority to ensure the proper guidance of the program and to develop and implement processes for the evaluation, assessment, and continuing improvement of the program. The overall competence of the faculty may be judged by such factors as education, diversity of backgrounds, engineering experience, teaching effectiveness and experience, ability to communicate, enthusiasm for developing more effective programs, level of scholarship, participation in professional societies, and licensure as Professional Engineers.