I read the article thinking there would be some fundamental flaw pointed out that the AUS universities were doing. Instead, it complained that the CS curriculum was theoretical and used old languages like C, instead of PHP, Python, and Ruby. IMHO, that's what a CS degree should be. Most Universities in the US seem to follow the same structure. They try their best at times to use newer languages, but their job is to teach the fundamentals of Computer Science. Once you have those fundamentals, picking up new languages should be easy. The argument that you should be able to come straight out of the university, without any of your own studying on the side (outside of the curriculum), and be ready to work at a company is sort of foolish. There is no possible way to ready a student for all aspects of a Software Engineering position, so the best thing to do is teach them the theory and fundamentals and hope that enables them to learn quickly on their own. I've hear arguments of why someone should skip school, and honestly this is one of the poorer reasons to do so. As an aside, does any major fully prepare you for work in that field? Electrical Engineering at a University is highly theoretical, and when you get out you start to learn about the real world building blocks to the profession. That is to be expected in that field, so why should Software Engineering be any different?
I think the headline might be slightly over-the-top, especially since the article is basically a plea for better university. The fact that non-university-educated developers can, fairly regularly, turn out to be better developers than those who did get a university education (at anything other than a top-tier university) proves there's a problem, but the solution is probably a rethink of how university treats the subject. Kudos to Harper for putting together his own internship program rather than just complaining about the standard of state provision too.