A quick response to "To be blunt, university degrees are only as valuable as the weight applied by company hiring managers, and Google has just signaled that a $300 certificate has parity with a diploma."

This is a key insight that has been made by many since the first MOOCs rolled out. It was true then and continues to be. Most companies haven't yet decided that they value MOOCs at the same level as college degrees, even though MOOCs have been around for quite a while. While this change could signal a turning point, I feel compelled to note that this is only for certain positions in Google. I didn't see software development in the list here. As another response mentioned, there need to be multiple paths for different people and different careers. I enjoying using MOOCs to continue my own education, but I have yet to see a MOOC that actually provides the structure of a good college curriculum with a variety of courses that have clear prerequisites and utilize that prerequisite knowledge. The closest I've seen is things like Specializations or Nano-degrees that have a small number of "courses" strung together linearly. Those courses cover less material than a typical college course, so they tend to be roughly equal to a two semester sequence in college. That's not even close to a full course of study in a STEM field.