Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

I cringe at the thought that software engineering could become a "blue collar" profession.

Systems have become needlessly over-complicated and this is driving an increase in demand for coders.

As companies hire more coders; their systems get more features but they also grow in complexity (particularly if they hire junior coders). Non-technical managers are often not knowledgeable enough about programming/architecture to see that their systems are more complicated than they need to be and never bother to rein-in the complexity.

So basically as the complexity increases and becomes harder to manage, companies hire more coders but those coders are a double-edged sword because whilst helping to manage existing complexity, they also add new complexity on the side.

Unlike with most other professions, in software development/engineering, there is no limit as to how many people you can throw at a problem; that's because there is no limit to system complexity and richness of features but the law of diminishing returns still applies.

I did a term in the Marines as a radio tech for air traffic control. I did all of it in Yuma, AZ. No deployments, not even a float on a ship. I got out with a job offer in hand to work at Intel as a microscope tech. Intel offers to pay for tuition, but I get $22k in BAH and a book stipend per year on top of free tuition with the GI Bill, so it's a better deal for me to make Uncle Sam pay for it. My SO is a nurse, so she makes good money as well.

I'm fulfilling my end of the bargain, I guess; I've kept pretty close to a 4.0 GPA while working full-time. But when John Q. Taxpayer thinks of a veteran going to college on the GI Bill, he probably doesn't think of a POG[1] radio tech whose parents are both affluent college grads. He thinks of some grunt who lived in the dirt and got shot at in Afghanistan and is probably the first person in his family to go to college.

The latter tend not to use their benefits at all, use them as another form of welfare like the parent poster mentioned, (take some fluffy bullshit classes and pocket the BAH) or get scammed by some shitty for-profit institution.

Result: Those who use the benefits tend to be those who were already going to go to college and do well anyway. Of course, if you threaten to canc the benefits, you're going to get a bunch of very angry veterans and affiliated people who will yell at you for ripping away that poor grunt's chance to be the first kid in his family to go to college. Never mind the fact that the poor grunt got suckered by fucking DeVry or just didn't go at all.

[1] Personnel Other than Grunt.

What I think they now commonly mean:

* CS is a branch of math

* the art of building software is engineering

To run with your analogy though: if programming were like riding a bike, that could do great things for society. There would be a significant portion of the working population that understood the idea of what their computers were made to do and improve their ability ability to leverage these machines to assist them in achieving their tasks even more efficiently. That would be the equivalent to the majority of people who can ride a bike and could use that skill to improve their mobility while saving money for themselves and their local society, improving health,..., reaping all of those benefits that can be achieved from knowing how to ride a bike even if most people who can ride a bike will never be able to live off of their bike riding ability.