This is a biased question, because the people who chose not to go to college are not likely to have a clear understanding of what the experience is like.
College for me personally had little to do with academics and much more to do with the people I met once there. When I was leaving high school, I had little idea that this would be the case.
That mirrors my college experience, but I'll also point out that people who don't go to college usually don't just sit around on the couch all day doing nothing. They have experiences too, and meet other people that they would never have come into contact with had they gone to college, and often have jobs or other experiences that are much more varied than their college-educated peers.
I think the bottom line is that it doesn't actually matter whether you go, it matters that you make a decision and follow through on it, and that you make a decision based on your life and not the desires of your parents, teachers, the Internet, or society at large. Yes, not going may shut off some opportunities and experiences that you could have, but there will be other opportunities and experiences that fill that void.
OT but on the no poach agreement scandal this comment suggest that Eric Schmidt should apologize (yea, I know "Jonathan Rosemberg" has already resigned from Google):
It would be biased put in the context of "I'm deciding if I should skip college, is that the right decision?" and using those as your main data point to find your answer.
I never went to Uni first time around as I was homeless then.
I finally went some 15 years after most people did.
I acquired an MSc in Computer Science, having no prior education (no A-levels, Bachelors, etc).
What I found was: It's not essential, but it gives you the vocabulary to communicate your ideas with and confidence in what you're doing. Those can be valuable things, but I had already learned through diverse work experience the subject itself.
I'd recommend solving real problems over going to a class, but I do think there's a lot of value in taking the reading list for a degree and working through it.
My career in tech has never suffered for not having a college degree.
I have lost jobs to people who had advanced degrees, but as far as I know I've never lost out on a job due to lack of a bachelor's.
When I'm hiring I care less about your degree than just about anything else. Having a degree definitely won't hurt you, but it's not nearly as much of a qualification in my industry as practical experience is.
That said, I've definitely taken college classes when they offered something I wanted to learn, and I would like to do more of that - not for the degree, but because learning stuff is cool.
I do sometimes wish that I had "the college experience", the dorms, the parties, the social aspect and forming long-term friendships with people.
However, as it seems that the most common reason people go to college is to be able to get a good job afterwards, and I currently have a well-paying job that I enjoy very much (programming), and no college debt, I call that a success.
Having the "college experience" is not worth the thousands of dollars of debt that I see my friends and peers struggling to pay off, especially for those who did not go into a well-paying field like programming.
I chose yes, but I really only have sporadic bouts of regret triggered by a specific event: not being able to grok things. Whenever I cannot wrap my head around a CS concept, I blame my postponement of my degree. Whatever it may be, I feel like I would have learned it at university. If I would have finished, I probably wouldn't have learned most of those things, but at least I wouldn't have that nagging feeling every time.
I voted yes but it's not so much that I regret not going as I regret not being more open-minded while I was in college. All the classes I considered a waste of time are now subjects I find to be interesting (or useful). For instance, psychology seemed totally unrelated to the my EE/CS curriculum, but now the psychology of why people click on one button or link versus another is enthralling.
Yes: So people that expect that not complain
No: Because I was there, and I even give the class about OO because the teacher don't know well, be there mean be 5 years behind the tech, and frankly: Because the "superior education" was not that superior, and the U don't give the kind of education I was hopping for..
Yes, but: I made that decision in 1992, when the ROI calculation was very different. If given the choice right now I would probably not go to college without a scholarship covering most costs, as the financial costs of going are much higher, and the opportunity costs of not going are much lower.
I dropped out of college, so I have first hand experience both ways. For me personally, I don't regret dropping out at all. For some career paths though, college would be very valuable.
Yes because I get bored easily and having a degree would give me more flexibility to switch back and forth between industry and academic jobs. Right now I'm stuck in industry.
College for me personally had little to do with academics and much more to do with the people I met once there. When I was leaving high school, I had little idea that this would be the case.