[pallinder]

I would think it is mostly about the person.

Some people - like me, are very anti authoritarian and love to do things on their own and teach themselves how to become better at things. Some people enjoy a more structured life. I dont think any of the paths are wrong its just that there are different kinds of people, and different kinds of people take different kinds of paths to achieve the same thing.

Will dropouts save America, probably not, looking at the stats it seems as if people fare far better going the education route but a couple will succeed and because they are in the minority people will rejoice "Hey look, we to can succeed without getting a degree", what they missed though is the mountain of work these people put into their projects to succeed. There are no shortcuts.

College is hard work (Im sure), doing it without a degree is also a lot of hard work. And as I said earlier, it comes down to the person to decide what is the right path for him/her.