[MoltenMan]

I think 'mirage' is the wrong word; college very much has gone out of vogue as a place of learning. But if you want to get a good job, you still do need to go to get the piece of paper, regardless of whether you think you'll be learning anything. The other factor you have to keep in mind is that college is where every 'smart' 20ish yo goes. If you want to meet people your age similar to you they are most likely all in college! It's difficult as a 20ish yo to have a social life outside of college.

I personally took a gap year working at a startup mid college, and as much as I enjoyed working I still ended up coming back to college purely for those two reasons.

[techblueberry]

"college very much has gone out of vogue as a place of learning"

Has it? Is there data behind this? The only thing I've seen so far is hot takes from tech CEO's.

[MoltenMan]

I haven't looked at the source but the first paragraph of the article shows the percentage of people thinking a college education is important or worth it declining in the last decade. This is what I was referring to, but to be fair I don't know if college has actually gotten worse or if it's solely a change in what people think. For me personally it definitely is not useful at all for learning.

[michaelbuckbee]

I think it might be better framed as "college doesn't seem like it's worth it".

Some of this is back of the napkin math of degree costs having risen so much, but also likelihood of using your degree or getting a professional job having fallen.

[techblueberry]

I often wonder - Hacker News seems like it might bias towards people who might be more self driven in their learning, does the mean student who is driven enough to go to class but doesn’t have the drive or understanding to learn on their own feel the same way? Especially in terms of bootstrapping a new skill. I’m very self-driven but could imagine college for like getting to that base professional level for something way out of my day-to-day. Particularly I think like I have a masters in counseling psychology, and I don’t think I could imagine that in my own without peers to discuss with and teachers to share professional experience.

At the same time - I’ve always been naturally good at tech. I could imagine when I was younger a CS degree being useful. Now, there are certainly gaps in my knowledge, but I’m well past the bootstrapping phase.