The absolute best and easiest way to become educated - if you care about that at all - is through college. This isn't some eternal mathematical truth. It's just that as of today, there are very few ways of getting education without going to college and learning from teachers who know the best way to approach a subject, and who can direct you to things that you in particular might find enlightening.

I think that's the real value of college, and unless you'd otherwise be poverty stricken, this value far exceeds that of the material gains.

Easily the most outlandishly wrong statement I've heard in years. Except for a very narrow set of STEM courses (such as analytical chemistry) the vast majority of a college education comes about through nothing more than reading books and writing papers. This is something that many folks are entirely capable of doing on their own.

Edit: The strongest proof I have for this sort of thing being the case is the prevalence of people with the "wrong" degrees. For example, one of the most talented developers I worked with was a physicist by education. One of the reasons why this sort of phenomenon is so hard to study in the developed world is because pretty much any individual with the dedication to study any subject is going to be able to get a 4-year degree in that subject in some way (the cheapest way being 2-years of community college for a transfer degree then another 2-years or less at a state school). Given the value of a college degree as a credential there are very few people who wouldn't make that choice.

You went to a shitty college, I guess. Or maybe didn't realise what was going on around you?

(I'm not normally that mean to folk on the internet, but you totally earned it with that ridiculous opener.)

Much easier said than done. The course plan, deadlines, and grade that are parts of a university course force motivation that often does not exist in self-study. In my case, I've only engaged in "motivated self-study", when I have been very motivated to solve a narrow problem and my studying was similarly narrow.

I'd say this was mostly true 20 years ago, sort of true 10 years ago, and utterly false today.

  > I'd say this was mostly true 20 years ago, sort of true 10
  > years ago, and utterly false today.

Libraries and textbooks did exist back then, you know. Your comment comes significantly too early.

In my experience, pretty much anyone who can program well is self-educated. They might have also done a CS degree, but most of them were programming on their own beforehand.

Though it is also true that the things he learned are limited to what catched his curiosity. With classical education you get a more wider and uniform education, but also more shallow than if you dig the knowledge by yourself.

Note also that education plays only a significant role in hiring the next few years after it. After that it's what you have achieved and your expertize domain that become the most relevant.

My post never said anything to the contrary. In fact, I am just starting graduate school so I certainly believe in the education it provides -- at least to me.

* To elaborate on my original post, what I was getting at is that not everyone who goes through college will make a good employee, and not going to college doesn't automatically make someone a bad employee.

For instance, my degree is in chemical engineering but I have been programming since I was twelve. I could probably do a good job in a programming career despite the fact that I don't have a CS degree just because of the sheer amount of free time I've spent learning about programming.

At least in the US, you're more likely to get someone better suited for a technical job if they have a degree in that field. It's not at all guaranteed, but there's a decent chance.