In recent years, a growing number of coding boot camps have helped address the large gap between available software engineering positions and qualified candidates to fill them.

Coding bootcamps have been so successful that observers have wondered whether these programs are beginning to replace traditional college computer science degrees. For example, Aaron Skonnard, the CEO of Pluralsight, argues in Edtech's Next Big Disruption Is The College Degree that college degrees will be replaced by "a new array of modern credentials that are currently gaining mainstream traction as viable measures of learning, ability and accomplishment."

A drop in the number of computer science degrees followed by a rise in the number of coding bootcamp graduates appears to support this notion. Are coding bootcamps causing a reduction in computer science degrees? Or are they simply responding to a reduction from some unknown cause (for example, cost, increased difficulty perception, other more interesting degrees, etc.)?

The U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, which collects, analyzes, and shares data on American education, has published extensive information about the history of bachelor's degrees, which shows a drop in the percentage of bachelor's degrees conferred in computer science over the last decade: