That sounds great and all, but I wonder if there were alternative ways of learning to "think laterally and critcally and have your ideas of creativity exhausti

That sounds great and all, but I wonder if there were alternative ways of learning to "think laterally and critcally and have your ideas of creativity exhaustively challenged" without going into massive debt and dedicating several years of your life to an institution of higher learning. I'm certain there must be less costly and less time consuming way of obtaining these skills. In fact higher education would seem to me to be the least efficient means of obtaining these skills.