You are going to get downvoted to hell for "gatekeeping" but you're right.
Instead of just graduating 50 people who "get the trade", we're now diluting them with another 350 that "made the grade". Then tech firms need wild, crazy interview processes to sort them back out. Everybody suffers, including the 350 who may have been productive and happy in another, more suitable profession.
And it's weird that people see it as gatekeeping, since there's plenty of other professions out there that artificially restrict supply, and no one raises a sthink about them. People do about software because we work online and are constantly giving opinions no one asked for.
It's less about gatekeeping, and more about sustaining a healthy industry that is quickly headed for a disastrous race to the bottom. Google and friends are spending billions under the magnanimous "bringing coding to everyone" when they really just want to lower developer salaries. Not everyone needs to learn how to code, just like not everyone needs to be a doctor, or learn how to be a carpenter. I constantly wonder when will be the right time to "get out" before salaries start their inevitable side downwards. Could be a couple decades though.
Instead of just graduating 50 people who "get the trade", we're now diluting them with another 350 that "made the grade". Then tech firms need wild, crazy interview processes to sort them back out. Everybody suffers, including the 350 who may have been productive and happy in another, more suitable profession.