It depends crucially on what you're trying to study. Universities haven't had a monopoly on books for centuries. Their monopoly on good lecturers is getting sm

It depends crucially on what you're trying to study. Universities haven't had a monopoly on books for centuries. Their monopoly on good lecturers is getting smaller by the second, thanks to e.g. Open Courseware. They're still the place to run into professors, grad students, etc. outside of class. That can be very important. Serendipity is a nice thing. They still offer a critical mass of fellow students. That's often a big deal for your education, and it's certainly most of the fun. Plus, as many have pointed out on HN over the years, there are precious few places in the world where you can literally live next door to a bunch of fellow hackers, all of whom are young and nearly unemployed and used to living cheaply and ready to embark on a project with you on a whim. (Trust me: After you turn thirty, this never happens again. Everyone has these tedious families and jobs and lives that intrude on their hacking time, and they're all out of sync, such that when you are free they are always busy. ;) Finally, universities have infrastructure. Laboratories. Lots of laboratories. Those you really won't ever get your hands on again. College, and even much of grad school for that matter, were worth it for me just for the labs and shops alone. I built hundreds of tiny lasers!