My take here is that it is too easy to look back on what was learned in college and what you use today in comparison to it's source and conclude you've picked u

My take here is that it is too easy to look back on what was learned in college and what you use today in comparison to it's source and conclude you've picked up way more on the job and use comparatively little from the formal education. Therefore the value is low. Could you likely have learned everything that you got from your degree on your own while cutting out some of the less practical parts? Almost definitely. Would the person who isn't looking back with 20/20 hindsight know what to cut? I think that is less likely. Would a person without the formal structure of a degree actually gone out and learned all those same things with the same commitment? Some might be able to, but I suspect most would lose interest. Sure your career might have ended up never touching a single networking component that you learned about in school. But maybe you loved that part and if left to your own devices would have forsaken other parts of the education to just deep dive on it. Would that be fine? Maybe. Or maybe you quite like working in the role that you find yourself in. A role that you might have shut the door to very early on without some structure. So I think a mix of hindsight and overestimating a person's ability to just stick with a rigorous learning process that can take months and months (or years) without the benefits of peers, teachers, structure, and accountability leads to this belief. I should mention though that as we are speaking about "value", the ROI on college in America is pretty rough. Even with all those benefits laid out, it is hard to make it too rosey in the face of a hundred thousand dollars of potential debt. Extra so due to the fact that you can acquire a portion of that debt and not even come out the other side with a degree.