[rvb]

For what it's worth, I dropped out of college, ended up starting a company, and had a decent exit (fortunately). But I'm using the freedom that gave me to go back to school.

I was able to manage before by teaching myself out of books, but there's something to be said for learning with expert guidance and a community of peers.

I am also gaining exposure to a variety of fields which lend themselves less well to self-instruction than programming does (for example, molecular biology) and in which I believe a lot of the action for the next fifty years will be happening.

So, yeah, unless you already have a product that has traction and that demands your fulltime attention to continue growing, there's no reason to drop out of school.

My advice to students is: imagine that you were forced to drop out of college against your will, and then were given a chance to go back five years later after slogging it out in the real world. Would your attitude be different than it is now? Would you perhaps go to more office hours, skip less class, explore more subjects, play less Xbox, join more clubs?