The author draws a hard distinction between Udacity/Coursera MOOCs (good) and traditional master's degrees (bad). I'll interject that with Georgia Tech's Online Master's in Computer Science program [0], which is delivered via Udacity and insanely cheap [1], you can get the best of both! (Their "Computability, Complexity and Algorithms" class is one of the top Udacity courses cited in the article.)
Keep in mind that a traditional degree program does have a huge advantage over a strict MOOC: accountability. It sounds good to say that anybody can go push themselves through one of these courses. Try pushing yourself through ten, and actually writing all the papers and implementing all the code, while working full time and having a family. That grade looming at the end of the semester really does wonders for your motivation. Plus you can get help from live professors and TAs, and the Piazza forums for OMSCS are full of smart, curious students who love talking about the subject at hand. There's a richness to the degree experience that I don't think you get with scattered classes.
Keep in mind that a traditional degree program does have a huge advantage over a strict MOOC: accountability. It sounds good to say that anybody can go push themselves through one of these courses. Try pushing yourself through ten, and actually writing all the papers and implementing all the code, while working full time and having a family. That grade looming at the end of the semester really does wonders for your motivation. Plus you can get help from live professors and TAs, and the Piazza forums for OMSCS are full of smart, curious students who love talking about the subject at hand. There's a richness to the degree experience that I don't think you get with scattered classes.
(Obvious disclaimer: I'm a current OMSCS student)
[0] http://omscs.gatech.edu [1] https://www.omscs.gatech.edu/program-info/cost-payment-sched...