Having considered the options presented here, I just thought of an alternative to college. Just imagine if the big tech companies got together and started their own online university solely devoted to STEM majors. That would include Microsoft, Google, Apple, IBM, Facebook, Yahoo!, etc. In between them they are sitting on more than $100 billion of cash, which is enough to start an Ivy-league university of their own. They could disrupt higher education and supply themselves with plenty of STEM graduates that meet their needs as employees, in addition to funding research through a college-like organization. They could work their way through the accreditation process so that it is a "real" degree and not just a collection of online classes. And they could make use of it for their own ongoing employee education. Just think of the possibilities...