My college said I should spend at least three hours studying for every hour in class. So in a sense, three of my four years at college were getting "a quality

My college said I should spend at least three hours studying for every hour in class. So in a sense, three of my four years at college were getting "a quality education remotely. Also, most of college can be learned free online or in books these days." There is a pedagogical and psychological question of how much one learns from reading books on ones own, at one's owns pace and reading order - and how much one learns from lecture, from speaking to the professor before, during and after class and during office hours, and from working with and talking with other students taking these classes. Plus access to the library, the computer network and different servers, computer rooms, internships, student computer club meetings and open talks etc. Plus the usual of making friends, growing as a person, having access to a nice gym and swimming pool etc. Does the unguided student even know what to study? I took graph theory for a semester and wondered why it was a prerequisite until my data structures course where I dealt with trees, graphs etc. How many people without a Bachelors in Computer Science can explain the difference between O(n) and O(log n), other than maybe they know O(log n) is faster? Yes, having a BSCS doesn't guarantee you can, but I rarely meet people without a BSCS who have any kind of theoretical basis in computer science. Maybe they went to a bootcamp for a few weeks/months and can code CRUD apps in Javascript. I can go on...I took a writing class from a very good teacher. Although this would probably fall off the path of any focus on STEM, it improved my writing skill. Reading e-mails, instant messages, documentation, code review comments, code comments, architecture plans, presentations etc., I think a lot of people can do with a good course in writing, and it would help more IT projects get on track if people knew how to write and communicate clearly. It is not something on the clear path of STEM, but in a sense it is, and is just another thing college helps at. It can refine people in a way that helps them go on to professional work.