That might depend on what you define as 'proper'. These environments are typically tailored toward a certain median individual and if you don't fit that median (above or below), you aren't going to have a good time. In my own experience, I can generally self-educate far better than what I've found in any traditional educational environment available* to me. I just can't deal with the snail's pace of concept introduction, the shallowness of concept exploration, etc. Everything moves so slow and I just tune it out.
* What I've seen of MIT's open courseware appeared interesting and well-paced to me, but that's not a route that was ever available to me.
Disagree. I think it's the complete opposite. Higher education is way to structured and inflexible.
If you're not there to network and find a job, you're the odd one out. This idea of treating these institutions as places for continual higher learning is just not the norm.
It's an interesting predicament, more education for everyone is better, yet our designation of colleges/universities as the "last" required tier has stunted many people in many ways.