Educational institutions aren't exactly the same as businesses. For instance, how many teenagers actually WANT to attend high school? Looking back I can hones

Educational institutions aren't exactly the same as businesses. For instance, how many teenagers actually WANT to attend high school? Looking back I can honestly say I learned some important things in high school (but then again, I took every AP class available to me and then some). Colleges and universities have an interesting niche to fill. A broad-based liberal arts education isn't just a tradition - it's actually a useful tool that can help with whatever your main task is in life. I am a computer scientist by trade and by degree. My degree taught me very little I wasn't already aware of as far as computer science is concerned. The most mind blowing thing was learning Scheme, which led me to learn CL, and start looking at other functional languages. However, my degree also taught me about art (very important for a CS person IMHO), literature, history, philosophy, biology, mathematics, physics, and more... I have hobbies outside of CS mostly because of my degree. Most importantly, I can draw inspiration from other disciplines, because I understand the basics of many disciplines. Too many people expect colleges to provide only directly relevant instructional material. This is not what college is for. If you only want to learn a specific trade, go to trade school. College isn't going to get you a job, it isn't going to feel immediately useful, especially when you are young. I had the advantage of slowly getting a degree over 8 years while working full time. It was hard, and the first few years I whined like everyone else - but then I started to see how becoming more intellectual gave me a leg up in business and in CS. Colleges don't give the students what they want, because most of them haven't a clue what they want or need to prosper in the long term. College isn't job training.