[solveit]

I maintain that there still exist things that you can only learn via osmosis. Sometimes, books and MOOCs just will not do.

Also,

> It's not as if the alternative to 4 years of undergrad and $100-250k in tuition + living costs is just teaching yourself the same arbitrary curriculum alone in your room for 4 years getting a degree in some random field learning things you never actually use in the real world. One could instead intern or work, and not only potentially learn significantly more relevant and lucrative real-world skills for free, but actually get paid to do it.

I mean, sure you can not go to school and do different things, and it might even be a good idea, but that's a far cry from the original claim, which was

> Absolutely nothing you learn in a college education you can't learn yourself for free on the internet.

[JDiculous]

Please name me one piece of any STEM undergraduate curriculum that I can't learn for free on the internet, and then I'll take back my statement.

[jshowa3]

Not everyone is a genius like you. And if you want to sit in your room and do tutorials and MOOC courses all day without speaking to a single soul, and you can figure everything out on your own without guidance, be my guest. I applaud you, because that's something I struggle with and maybe that says more about me than you.

Not only that, please tell me how many people can afford things like a mass spectrometer, fume hood, VNA, and other pieces of equipment that cost upward of 6,000+ dollars when they're in high school. If you want a real STEM education, you need to learn how to use test equipment unless you stick with CS or math, there isn't a lot of options to learn for "free". Even online courses cost money.

Sure there may be many people that get lucky and get into actual positions, but they're few and far between and are a direct result of success bias. The media shows you the thousands or so odd people that make it under extreme circumstances and never once mentions the people who never make it because that isn't "cool".

[JDiculous]

Ok yes my statement applies more to fields like CS and math and not to fields that require a lot of physical equipment (eg. chemistry).

I'm not claiming that the best way to learn is alone in your room, I don't even believe that to be the case. The best way to learn is by working with people who know more than you. That is generally what happens when you work a full-time job. Sure in school you can learn from professors, but (1) what you learn is often divorced from the reality of professional work (2) the format of listening to lectures, completing busywork, and taking multiple-choice exams on random information could be Googled isn't the most efficient way to learn.

Yes I know it's difficult to find work without a degree because companies unfortunately discriminate against applicants without degrees. I wouldn't be opposed to a law that banned employers from discriminating against non-degree holders unless the job clearly requires someone with the expertise gained from the degree (eg. medicine, not law or marketing).