The academic education has two purposes: 1. To instruct you in a systematic manner. You can do a good job by yourself but for someone else who might depend on

The academic education has two purposes: 1. To instruct you in a systematic manner. You can do a good job by yourself but for someone else who might depend on your knowledge and experience, it is easier to trust an institution to do that than to trust one to do it by oneself. There is the inherent risk of erratic learning. There are reasons to prefer having a guide or a mentor. This is not to refute any of your arguments. You may find free mentorship, your autodidact ability might be of high quality and the academic institutions may as well violate the trust of the benefiting parties - both future employers and future employees. 2. To asses in the end the quality of your enlightenment. Because the academic system's interests depend on this, it might be a faulty process. For one, the competition game and the perceived self value/image involved in this is driving the education prices like crazy (which is not like the other competition-ruled areas, mind you), and for other - the "propaganda" that is meant to keep the high demand for education, sadly regardless of its quality. Yet, the value assessment is a hassle into which many employers do not want to get involved. This is what maintains artificially the value of a degree. The academic system has its dirty game and you were smart enough to reap its promised benefits without being played. Congratulations! I am sure you'll find a way to deal with the after-effects of those who didn't.