That is exactly right. In terms of knowledge acquisition the disruption has occurred. Any motivated young person can get a world class education free of charge, without ever stepping into an ivy. But it turns out the main purpose of college is to sort people not educate them and we are only now realizing that.

Exactly. This sort of post comes up on HN at least once a month. Higher ed is a positional good.

You can watch MIT lectures, go to your local library, read blog posts, listen to podcasts, read open source. It's all free. But it won't give you that scarce resource of brand affiliation on your resume no matter how hard you try.

Whatever you learn is only one of the many components of the total package.