Sure but if you compare someone who has no degree or work experience yet (thus applying to entry level jobs) to someone who has a 4 year degree, some internships, etc, the second one obviously has more experience. 4 years of cs projects and actual in depth knowledge etc outweighs a bootcamp. Any actually good cs student will also do projects, so they will be fairly even on that. There’s also more opportunities in university such as hackathons, robotic/racing/cybersecurity/game jams/etc. competitions, research, etc.

Moreover, university students can do internships which means they get work experience, which is a major plus to your resume. They spent four years preparing for the application, they have the potential to have a much much stronger application.

More realistically/on the lower end of things, you compare someone who’s done a bootcamp and has a few projects from it to someone who did 4 years of cs at university and has a few projects from it. They still studied for a lot more time (4 years of projects, cs work, etc just objectively is more experience than 6 months at a bootcamp), so they’d have more experience.

Cs students can learn on their own and many do. Also a lot of universities have great quality cs programs. Lots of students go to good quality universities and they’re also applying. Being taught something by someone who actually knows what they’re doing is so much better than learning on your own imo. I’ve done both.

And if anything, the average cs student will have more “on the job” experience than the average bootcamp person because they can do internships.

Comparing someone with years of full time work experience isn’t equivalent. There are cs grads who also have full time work experience.