Being in the same space as people you'd like to learn from is key, but I don' think we need the traditional educational institutions for it. For instance, there

Being in the same space as people you'd like to learn from is key, but I don' think we need the traditional educational institutions for it. For instance, there are more bright highly-motivated (especially motivated) people at my local makerspace than there ever was at my engineering college (this in Norway).