We have to stop pretending degrees are worthless. The way I see it, going to school, expedites your learning process, by exposing you to professors and your peers, it helps you learn best practices, which although generic, saves you a lot of time making same mistakes others (your professors and your peers) have made. Also it gives you the focus and urgency to finish your learning on time.
As an analogy, consider the knowledge accumulated while atending school as open source software, even if your knowledge or the OSS is generic to be fully usable for the task at hand, it almost always gives you a big headstart to get your job done, because it avoids the trivial and non-trivial pitfalls through years of maturity.
It is true that degrees are not inherently worthless. They can indicate a lot of prowess in an individual. The problem is that the process of attaining a degree has become too standardized and universal. Now, it is easier for someone to game the system, thereby acquiring a degree without any of the intended benefits of the process.
The meritocracy and strict requirements of more individualized approaches in open source is a good alternative (see my other replies).
Bearing these concepts in mind, I agree that it is important to maintain that a degree is not a black mark on a CV. It remains just as important to remember that a degree is also not the shining star on a CV that it once was.
You're conflating the degree and the relevant knowledge gained in pursuit of the degree. They are not one in the same, and I believe that is the point most people are making. At least, that's what I believe.
The skepticism directed at college education is a result of cost/benefit analysis. I would gladly take a 2-year associate's program that yielded a degree in computer science, much like nurses have an 2-year nursing degree. The four year degree I'm in pursuit of now (in my 30s)? I'll likely drop out after getting the discrete math, algorithms and other math-intensive courses I likely would not study on my own.
"I'll likely drop out after getting the discrete math, algorithms and other math-intensive courses I likely would not study on my own."
I think that statement right there is why degrees are still valuable. To earn your degree you will have to study subjects that an independent learner would not likely study on their own.
So far in my career, the amount of math I was required to take to earn my CS degree has been very valuable. I have to use it a lot. (Graphics, GIS).
No, that statement is an example of why the information is valuable, not the degree. There is still a whole lot of stupid hoops people have to jump through to get a degree.
As an analogy, consider the knowledge accumulated while atending school as open source software, even if your knowledge or the OSS is generic to be fully usable for the task at hand, it almost always gives you a big headstart to get your job done, because it avoids the trivial and non-trivial pitfalls through years of maturity.