One of the worst aspects of government institutions is that we become dependent on them. We then no longer remember how life could have existed without them. Before the age of the university, young people would meet interesting other people through fraternal associations, clubs, coffee houses, and pubs. In these societies you could find a rousing chess game, talk politics, start a charitable activity or even purchase group health insurance. The University of Pennsylvania, was originally founded by Ben Franklin as society for his friends to promote their mutual intellectual advancement. The cost was nearly free. The idea that we need government to subsidize "making friends", that finding a group of intellectual peers requires spending $50K a year in tuition, is preposterous.
as kevin kelly argued 10-15 years ago - death is an essential component of healthy, evolving ecosystems.
As long as a legal and judicial system is not abused to the detriment of the society for which it serves, this aspect of government is very useful.
"The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting." That created beautiful typefaces later on PCs :)
More and more I realize "one size fits all" is never true.
The big thing that needs to go from schools is structure and the focus on 'success'..
Essentially the fact that people from similar age groups are considered equal - have to take the same courses - for the same amount of time - subject to the same exams - and imparted an extremely flawed relative ranking system is all horribly wrong.
In the real world the harder part is creating that structure - learning from open markets, finding out what you want to do and from that figuring out the courses you want to take - the people you want to learn from - the peers you want to work with.
And success is not about getting good grades but more about taking your own path which gets you your own happiness and the ones you care about.