The most valuable part of college for me (in terms of my career prospects) was not the degree I got, although it was a good degree. The most valuable thing abo

The most valuable part of college for me (in terms of my career prospects) was not the degree I got, although it was a good degree. The most valuable thing about college for me was the support, money, facilities that the college provided to me while I was there. They enabled me to do plenty of things I wouldn't have been able to otherwise. When I was at college I worked on plenty of OSS, created a web site for Nasa, and contributed to the W3C. My school paid for me to fly to a number of W3C conferences as scholarship. I also spent an inordinate amount of time in the university library which was many times vaster and better resourced than any library I've had at any employer since. Any technical book I wanted that they didn't have would normally turn up within a matter of weeks. Add to that a 24hr computing campus with access to mainframes around the clock. I got to experiment because I could keep my own hours and get time on the interesting hardware at 3am when sensible people were in bed. University is not just about a degree. As many other people here have said it's about the experience (I met my wife in college) and the learning, in an environment which allows it.