Thank you for this post. I recently got into MIT and have been torn and confused over whether or not it is worth going. All these anti-college posts on HN were not helping but this post shared some good perspective.
In my experience, MIT dropout is about as good as MIT graduate for some purposes; better for a few and worse for more, but overall preferable to never having gone to college.
I would probably say finishing a STEM degree at a top university is worthwhile even now if it can be done without too much difficulty. The only argument against it, assuming you enjoy school and would like to attend, is if you have another time limited opportunity (a side project taking off, acting career, etc) which is incompatible with school. Otherwise, I'd do it.
The useless college programs are in soft majors at mediocre schools with unmotivated and marginal students, who have better options in skilled trades, or at least taking some time off rather than treating school as a mandatory step in a scripted life.
You will probably regret it later if you do. MIT is the #1 college in the world for CS/Engineering type studies, it would probably be worth it for the contacts you make alone, not to mention that if you get through the course you will probably be headhunted based on the institution alone.
For the record: I just barely managed to finish college because it was too structured for me, so I'm by no means suggesting college is for everybody. It's just that, for some starting points, even the lowest-ranked university can be a big step up.
Work in scientific projects, try the ACM Programming contest, do some human classes. Live four years for your school. After that, you will be ready to pursuit the entrepreneurial dream.
You will have the rest of your life to work on your awesome side projects. Chances are forfeiting your next iphone app to study compiling to continuations will be a more fulfilling accomplishment in the long term.