I studied biochem and computer science in college. The biochem parts I absolutely could not have learned at home without a lab and domain experts teaching me. The computer science bits, not so much. I was already programming by college and was doing capstone-level work in my freshman courses. I suspect this is true of many students who get started with learning their field in high school.
I get the sense that for many degrees that are not hands on with labs and equipment, a university setting is unnecessary.
None of my "connections" from university mattered. I made it much further by making my own outside of classes. So, at least anecdotally, I can't buy that argument either.
It shouldn't cost so much!
Perhaps college aged kids could join something like the Peace Corps instead?
Community college costs need to return to <$10k/yr, too.
A lot of kids walk out having lost quite a bit of money to tuition.
Worse, the degrees they paid a small fortune for won't provide them jobs to payoff that debt.
From a political standpoint, many colleges are "liberal" institutions, and people don't want to be involved with that.
> Thiel explained in a 2009 essay that he had come to "no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible", due in large part to welfare beneficiaries and women in general being "notoriously tough for libertarians" constituencies, and that he had focused efforts on new technologies (namely cyberspace, space colonization and seasteading) that could create "a new space for freedom" beyond current politics