Academia is more about shaping your mind than learning material. Going to a lecture is also not a very effective way to learn material. What is important about

Academia is more about shaping your mind than learning material. Going to a lecture is also not a very effective way to learn material. What is important about lectures, assignments and tests is the social aspect. Everyone will attend the same topic at the same time at the sample place, setting you up for a (direct or indirect) discussion with your peers or your professor. This will not only force you to really think about the topic, but also introduce you to viewpoints your mind was not yet capable of producing. What makes a university good is what your, your peers and your professors have to offer. If you have a degree of MIT, that should tell people not that you were able to watch MIT lectures and do MIT tests, but that you spent at least 4 years developing your mind in one of the top academic and intellectual environments in the world. "I watched MIT lectures on the Internet" is not quite the same.