"You don't need college to learn stuff, everything is available basically for free. You can learn anything you want for free, it is not a question of learning ... I think colleges are basically for fun & to prove you could do your chores but they're not for learning."
-- Elon Musk
Musk is one of those people who I generally respect because he thinks about a number of things and suggests alternate 'paths'.
On this topic....for the past decade or two, I've pondered over the modern-day value of college, and it's cost. To attend a standard four-year university in the US....it's near $90k to $120k in tuition, room & board, and food-beer money.
If you tried to relate the cost to the amount of knowledge you 'procured'....it wouldn't really function like you think. It's possible to spend the $90k and still be fairly uneducated by the end of the four years....but have a piece of paper suggesting that you were trained in some way.
In Germany, it's mostly a free deal (you would have to find a method or gov't program to pay for room and board, with meals). But under this umbrella, there's a maximum number of students at each university each year (rarely raised) and they look over your grades. So marginal students don't go this path (unlike in the US where they might still enter college).
Any chance of this Musk chatter changing anything? No. If you work for a business, the HR people want to see a piece of paper to qualify you. The university program isn't about to be disrupted by the insights of one single guy. And the bulk of students in the world....probably need some college-path to exist because they aren't that inclined to learn more.
It is....what it is.
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