I think of the educational path that you’re taking as the “auto-didact web development model”. There are several factors that make this path viable (educationally and as a conduit to employment), including:

• a vibrant sector of the economy driving job growth;

• wide sharing of domain knowledge within an online community;

• accepted patterns of skill demonstration and social proof (beyond the traditional credential of a degree);

• low startup and ongoing cost of materials (computer ownership and access to commodity servers);

• willingness of professionals to act as mentors (whether through profit motives or generosity).

As a lifelong autodidact with an educational path that has been less structured than the above, I’m interested to see if elements of this pattern can work for self guided education in other fields... creating systems of non traditional educational guidance and credentialing. Part of the "the unbundling of the American university”, as you put it.

[Edit: formatting]