There are other options. For example you can get a huge number of humanities lectures from good universities online. Try out "iTunes U" sometime if you haven't

There are other options. For example you can get a huge number of humanities lectures from good universities online. Try out "iTunes U" sometime if you haven't seen it already; it's got top-quality lectures, but not the discussion. (This discussion component should be cheaper to provide than the whole package. There's probably a startup opportunity here. I don't know where you can get such discussion now, though.) Anyway, it's a large part of what you'd get in college, free. All you have to do is make a commitment to watch some lectures and study supplementary material if you don't understand something. It's a hell of a bargain.