HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Obama Has a $100M Plan to Fill the Tech Talent Shortage.

At its core, TechHire aims to convince local governments, businesses, and individuals that a four-year degree is no longer the only way to gain valuable tech skills.

“It turns out it doesn’t matter where you learned code, it just matters how good you are at writing code,” Obama said. “If you can do the job, you should get the job.”

That’s an idea that training startups like Codecademy and General Assembly, as well as online course companies like Coursera, have been pushing for years. Now, the White House is urging businesses and local governments to embrace that concept, as well.

In Silicon Valley, the idea of non-traditional training as a viable alternative to college is a familiar concept. In the rest of corporate America, not so much.

All is proceeding as I have foreseen. And this is terrible news for four-year institutions if it takes off. Kind of ungrateful of Obama, since higher ed was his biggest source of donations and manpower, but hey, expiration dates. . . .