From what I keep hearing, you can easily outdo a university graduate if you read books on the subjects for the time of the ongoing education. While it may not be true for everybody - indeed, those who do so seem to be revered as genii or otherwise exceptionally intellectually capable - it certainly doesn't seem impossible to learn on your own even in the most complicated areas thanks to the Internet and public libraries.
Also, when it comes to learning, schools touch upon subjects that are actually important in life - human rights, day-to-day human psychology, first aid, personal finances etc. - too rarely, and such school are too far apart to make a big difference. Instead, students are forced to study subjects that often bear no significance to their afterwards life. Certainly, knowing basic physics and mathematics is very important for everybody, but anything further ought to left for advanced ("profile", as it's called in Russia) studying for students who want to learn it on their own because they're interested.
Cooperation and socialisation are another two important traits that people usually assign to studying in schools. It may be a good thing for you to learn if you got put together, against your will, with good people, it also may be a very bad thing for bright students who get stuck together with kids who are growing to be criminals already. In Russia, students aren't encouraged to spend meaningful time together: they're simply assigned to a class and have no choice other than to change it to something less appaling/better (if there're two or more same-year classes) or to change schools altogether (you can visit in other cities if you want to in Russia; which some students have to, given that their schools are sometimes kilometers away, in other towns and villages). From what I've heard, the practice is the same in most first- and second-world countries.
One of the arguments against such statements is that parents ought to hold such responsibilities, not schools - which, to me, sounds cynically uncaring. The clear trend in the mentioned parts of the world is parents spending their whole days at work to make some sort of living to support their families. Grandparents might help, but it's impossible and idiotic to ask them or make them take care for their grandchildren's mental development while the kids spend most of their days at schools; even if we assume that those grandparents will be there for them for long enough to teach them useful subjects - or even one of those, if done well enough - how useful might it be to dedicated even few more hours to learning for the growing minds? They may be very receptive, but they aren't machines of learning: they're nothing but human beings with less experience than their parents (most often), which is what adults don't keep in mind, either through not knowing it or forgetting it.
The same ideas will apply to most universities: stuck with people you don't have any choice of (or even a process to separate you into groups of people who cooperate well), spending your years learning stuff that you can most often pick up from literature of public libraries and the Internet, and having very little time of your own to spend on things you can enjoy or even build your life around. Moreover, the change from being a school child, when teachers take care of you and your mistakes might very well be easily forgiven, and a university adult, when you have to take care of yourself and your life with mistakes starting to affect your life in ways they would without the safety nets, is so sudden and impactful that it leaves many students messed up emotionally and mentally, with plenty not holding up to the pressure. I know because I was one of those students: I bit off more than I could chew and ended up failing my first year dramatically, after which I left the uni.
So, what is it that only schools or universities can give?
Critical thinking skills. Being able to synthesize information. Maybe I could have learned it some other way, but for me, university was where that stuff really "clicked". It's also a nice little ease-in to the real world from living with your parents - like a test run for life. Learning how to be on your own but with responsible adults not too far off, a sort of built-in safety net. I'm tired so I apologize if I'm not being super clear/expressing myself well.
The thing I feel I got the most out of in college was the structure. Sure, I could have self-taught myself, but it's difficult when you don't know where to start. One of my bachelor's degrees was in linguistics. I didn't already know what the different subfields are and what order I should study them in. And even if I did know that, I wouldn't know which works are considered the most important in each of those subfields. I've noticed that people who have self-taught the fields I studied in university often have gaping holes in their knowledge of things that are vitally important to the field. It isn't their fault since it can be hard to assess your own knowledge, but it's not a problem a university-educated person would have (unless they just slept through all their classes of course ;)). And reading isn't everything; I tend to be someone who learns by doing. And doing linguistics (or anything else) is hard when you don't know where to start or have other people to do it with! Trying to do phonological derivations where you need to identify rules that lead to surface opacity is not something a beginner can do, but you wouldn't necessarily know that from self-studying. Instead, being given homeworks that gradually increase in complexity eventually prepares you for that. Plus, going to professors' office hours and talking through problems was always immensely helpful for me. Beyond just learning your chosen field, being prepared for a career in that field is another thing that universities offer. Having gotten close to professors through classes, I could then work on research with them independently and (1) get valuable career advice from them and (2) get letters of recommendation from them. So I guess I'd say that it's the guidance and structure you get from universities that is really valuable.
I have a friend that does education research and we've talked about this a lot. For me, a university is almost completely useless. I have no problem making friends, I'm self-motivated in my intellectual pursuits, and I learn best by doing rather than listening. So from my perspective it's really easy to assume that universities are basically a profiteering racket, and in a lot of ways they in fact are. But for a lot of people universities provide the only exposure that they will get to a lot of intellectual domains. Most people will never do any higher level math outside of a classroom, will never read philosophy outside of a classroom, will never read world literature outside of a classroom, will never do an empirical experiment outside of a classroom, will never read world history outside of a classroom... the list goes on and on. So in terms of efficiency, the university system is a joke, but in terms of forcing people to approach things that they don't want to approach, there aren't any real alternatives. As test-fetishism turns most universities into shallow stick-and-carrot degree factories the value of approaching those subjects is largely diminished, but that isn't inherent to the university model, and has more to do with distributing privilege to a handful of people at the expense of everyone else. This is a problem with capitalism more than a problem with the university model. When only a handful of people went to college, those colleges could get on with educating and the distribution of privilege didn't play a factor, because privilege was already adequately distributed by other means (race, economic standing, gender, what have you.) Since there has been a very strong push to send everyone to college, the distribution of privilege has become a function of the university system, and now they operate as gatekeepers of privilege, which really isn't a role that they should play (they should take in the students that they take in and teach them as much as they can; letting other forces operate on privilege.) The reason universities have turned into gatekeepers of privilege is the unseemly relationship between universities and corporations. Mass education and economic gain are not necessarily aligned with one another, but if they become aligned, universities will necessarily operate as gatekeepers of privilege. Universities have become an instrument of corporations because people get degrees in an effort to appeal to potential employers and this has the adverse effect of pushing universities to gear themselves towards the interests of corporations, to appeal to potential students (the three-way relationship between employers, universities, and students/employees could be discussed at length, but this is the gist of it.) And so the problem arises therein, but again, it's principally a failing of capitalism (there are only a handful of "good" positions in society that everyone is fighting for) and is not inherent to the university model itself (which should attempt to educated everyone as much as possible, rather than just the top few.)
To add to the university/corporation handshake, universities are also part of the military-industrial complex (at least, research universities are) since they are a hub for scientific/tech research (using government grants), the results of which can then be used by the military/government/biotech companies, so on and so forth.
I dunno. Everyone is different, but for me at least, there is a very big difference between studying things on my own and being physically at a school with someone who's an expert to guide me. I can learn on my own, but the going is slow and oftentimes I miss things or lose interest. Additionally, university teaches you discipline, which is an important skill that needs to be learned the hard way. I'm still lacking, but I've definitely gained discipline in school. aye basic physics and mathematics is all that is taught in secondary schools, at least in America. It's just that physics and mathematics are such vast fields that even the most basic stuff takes years to learn properly.when it comes to learning, schools touch upon subjects that are actually important in life - human rights, day-to-day human psychology, first aid, personal finances etc. - too rarely, and such school are too far apart to make a big difference. Instead, students are forced to study subjects that often bear no significance to their afterwards life.
Certainly, knowing basic physics and mathematics is very important for everybody, but anything further ought to left for advanced ("profile", as it's called in Russia) studying for students who want to learn it on their own because they're interested.
It's something that I've learned from #tfgsworkout: once there's little to no social pressure (especially from various sorts of patrons, like teachers), forcing yourself to learn becomes hard, even if you're passionate on the subject. Like you said: it's not impossible, but it becomes difficult to stay on the same level. I suppose, personal teachers (what's their name in the US?) should do the trick, even if you have to pay them (which means they're only a financially equal opportunity for would-be university students). Do those include logarithms and integrals? Also, what basic sciences are taught are never taught to apply to daily life: I can extract that I can use geometry (or whatever the proper field name is) to compute the necessary angle to cut stuff at, but physics and chemistry - two very powerful sciences in one's apartment or house - are simply pushed as information, with little to no regard for whether there'd be any use of it (which there must be). Given basic daily-oriented electrical physics education, for example, one can probably get their way into DIY-electronics and fix their own electrical mechanisms properly. Otherwise, what's the point of learning this stuff? Discipline may or may not relate to education. Certainly, good mentors will push you to perform even as you don't feel like it (a bullshit reason, but many of us don't recognize it for what it is), but they mustn't reside only in schools. Jobs may have them, as well, and if it's a job you excel at due to your sheer interest, you only need a little bit of motivation - often more than enough when extracted from the job results - to stay on track. Overall discipline can be achieved on your own; like learning, it will become more difficult to stay on track when you're on your own, so some support (or your personal drill sergeant) is necessary; schools may or may not give it to you.there is a very big difference between studying things on my own and being physically at a school with someone who's an expert to guide me.
basic physics and mathematics is all that is taught in secondary schools, at least in America.
Well they can give you the dread of having to go talk to FinAid again because they fucked with your grant again because "we weren't sure about your need in area 'X' or 'Y'." My EFC is 0. I'm like 99% I'm fucking eligible you neanderthals. Let's see, what else. Oh they can give you the finger while trying to take money from you for as long as they possibly can. "What's that? You have healthcare? Well you'll want to opt out of the Student Platinum Plan or that'll be $2,546." "Yes, this student fee is necessary for the new recreational outdoor pool that only freshmen will use before the week of school starts." Loans. They can give you loans. They caaaan give you the realization that you don't belong. They can put more effort into whatever Greek Life you might choose than they ever would with clubs with an emphasis on diversity or helpfulness in general. Oh, and internships or whatever, I dunno. The only thing universities can really give you is that piece of paper at the end of your 4 (or 5, or 6, or 7...) years. When the loan bubble pops and we hit Great Depression: ACT 2, then we might change the structure to be more intrinsically helpful and scholarly. But till then I'm going to wait and watch and chuckle a bit. At least Obama bumped up that sweet, sweet Pell Grant cash. THANKS OBAMA (no seriously).