[nostrademons]

I would love to see the social and academic components of college decoupled.

One of the things that always struck me as stupid about college when I attended is that I knew I was paying mostly for the privilege of going to school with a bunch of other grads who were silly enough to drop 40 grand on an elite education, and yet would end up in powerful positions afterwards on the strength of the name alone. The academics I could (and did) get elsewhere, more efficiently, but the degree and the network can't be replicated. However, the degree (fundamentally) is just a piece of paper, and the network (fundamentally) was just hanging out with a bunch of people who also got that piece of paper. I've found both to be quite valuable post-college, but there are many, many subjects that I could've studied that would've been more useful than my courses.

I bet we would see a lot more innovation in instruction methods and content of courses if they were decoupled from social aspects, networking, residences, and accreditation.

[nmrm]

For me, the social aspect of college was about a lot more than forming a "professional network".

I learned a lot and grew as a person interacting with people outside of my area who will probably never (directly) provide me with a competitive advantage in the job marketplace. However, I know what I don't know in much deeper ways than I otherwise would.

Attending meetups might get you this for the very narrow slice of the world that is CS.