Way way back in the day, a bunch of people who wanted to teach got together with a bunch of people who wanted to learn and we called it the free university. Now we have MOOCs. Is it the same thing? I don't think so. (mostly because free university classes had the potential to turn into orgies while studying Nietsche's The Birth of Tragedy or calculus.) I'd love to write more on what I learned at university that I didn't learn from a book. I'd like my students to write about what they learned in class that they didn't learn in a book. In fact they often do -- and I'd go on about it but, sadly, my computer is NOT WORKING and I'm on a borrowed MAC which I don't really know how to use. And I'm listening to the news about air attacks in the middle east. ... I'll get back to all of this when my computer is fixed. It is awful being disillusioned about school and wondering if it's all a scam so that professors can have jobs. It sounds like you feel continuing to attend classes is pointless in terms of real learning.An English literature degree? First you learn to read, then you either enjoy reading or you don't, end scene.
OK, just a second. I have one or two, actually almost three of those degrees. I also taught kids to read in grade one and taught bigger kids to read in graduate school. It wasn't exactly the same "reading" -- not even close.