Like what? Are you saying that most degrees, taught at universities today, could be condensed into 1 year, and the outcome would be that we'd have 19 year olds with the same skills as the 22 year olds graduating today? What degrees do you have in mind?
Well, I for one did a 3-year digital media / game development degree, but the bulk of our learning (programming, maths, foundations of game- and web-development and multi-media) was done with after the first year.
The rest was far more focused on project management, 'self-management', scientific writing and project work.
I wouldn't say you could replace all of that with a one-year degree, but you surely could offer a foundation course after which people are capable to go into industry and work on their practical skills. I guess that's kind of what these 'coding boot camps' are doing now (I don't really know much about them).
Something like this would work with some sort of work-school program so long as the person learning is getting paid a fair wage while working (% of the learned person's salary, increasing as time goes on). But I feel trying to sell this sort of thing to businesses so this is the norm is going to be difficult. So sure, if someone can get this sort of thing, go for it.
But we still need the schooling option. For folks that want to start a business themselves. for folks that are getting other sorts of experiences while they are young. People wanting to continue schooling. And so on.
Most vocational programs are multi-year but the later years are work-placement supervised externships, since you can't command a meaningful wage just from your basic training year.
Almost half of the courses I took were subjects like English, History, Health, and so on. I don't doubt the value of these courses but they were competing for time and energy with courses like Linear Algebra and Calculus often to my detriment. I think an advanced degree could be condensed to 2-3 years or 4 years of part-time night school.
