[yukoncornelius]

"I have little doubt that motivated self-study with the appropriate books would have produced an equally valuable education in the subject"

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.

[InclinedPlane]

As I said, pretty much anyone with the motivation to see their own education through is probably just going to go to a cheap college and get a degree as well, since the cost floor on a degree is pretty low for most people in, say, the US. However, I suspect that the advent of ebooks and educational software is going to radically change the landscape. To the degree where people 40 years from now will look at the higher education system we have today and think it is utterly preposterous and primitive.