School is absolutely fine for learning what you need. Better than doing it by yourself.
The real problem is that it's
A) Necessary for certain jobs
B) Way too expensive. Making people decide to go autodidact
Is it really way to expensive though? I will graduate with just shy of 40k in debt, and a 100k+ job. That is imho a great investment. I think the biggest problems with college is that too many view it as just a piece of paper and simply a continuation of high school. I went back to school after a decade from graduating from high school, and while I wouldn't say that college is perfect, I appreciate that they exist what they are for.
I will graduate with just shy of 40k in debt, and a 100k+ job. That is imho a great investment.
That's not enough information to tell you if it's a good investment or not. What would the next best alternative be? Unemployment? A 70k job? And remember that you didn't just lose 40k - you also lost the potential income you could be earning during those years. Assuming that job would earn you 40k/year of disposable income, and you went to college for five years, you actually forwent $240k, not just $40k.
I gave up about 15k in salary per year(I continued to make money while in school). I also only took 4 years. So I gave up 100k and accounting for inflation my break even point is about 2.5 years.
