Let me give some perspective from a high school senior: The main reasons for going to college is (a) a highly specialized education, (b) ability to grow your ne

Let me give some perspective from a high school senior: The main reasons for going to college is (a) a highly specialized education, (b) ability to grow your network, and (c) a good social setting that you may not get anywhere else. Particularly on point (a) - sure there are a lot of good online resources to learn, but you can't beat having an expert in the field at your disposal. Some topics like The basics of machine learning (Stanford CS229) can be found, but it's the truly specialized courses (more advanced machine learning) that are hard to find.