Are Universities now Superfluous?

   Recently I checked to see if there were any 'continuing education' courses in CAD/CAM or the exciting new field of 3D printing, thinking to give myself a jump start. A CAD/CAD course I saw was substantially beyond what I was willing to pay. There seemed to be nothing on 3D printing. I'm sure I did better in less time by once again using self directed internet studies. The maker of LibreCAD 2D CAD program gave on-line support where I had trouble. And I soon learned that what I wanted to do was better done another way, at least with my present CNC machine software. 3D modeling CAD/CAM software is available at the REPRAP 3D printing site, awaiting download, study, and use for free on my own learning schedule. If I'm going to spend money, it'll be on better 3D software - if I find the free offerings are inadequate.

   One need only look over my newsletters or projects to see how much I've learned - and accomplished - in the last 4-1/2 years without ever taking a formal course. In all these endeavors, I drew directly from the combined pool of recorded human knowledge, mostly as shared in humanity's new knowledge pool, the internet.

   There is surely a place for organized counciling and guidance of young people and helping them to direct their studies and make good choices. There's a place for evaluating and critiquing their progress.
   I've never attended a university, but it seems to me university students in fact lack satisfactory council and are permitted to drift, taking courses that prove useless towards attaining their goals and spending more of their young years there than is necessary or desirable. And I've heard of cases where universities deliberately avoid teaching students the skills most wanted by employers until they've attended for four or five years, to keep them enrolled as long as possible! Consequently these self-serving institutions are bloated, crowded and costly, yet the prospects for the graduates are poor.
   When I chose to take electronics at BCIT, the intense two year program was layed out in advance, with second year options of telecom, digital or electrical fields. 40% of the erstwhile technologists were weeded out before graduation, failing the tests mostly in the first year. The focus in 1975 was mainly on electronic equipment design. All the courses were at least nominally related to electronics and the sort of employment one might expect in the chosen field. The English was geared towards technical writing and the Math towards areas useful in electronic design. It seemed the adults in charge of the program felt they had a better idea what would be most beneficial for the students than the young, inexperienced students fresh out of high school, and arranged things accordingly. It was common to hear of a BCIT grad in charge of a group of university engineering grads in technical endeavors.

   So: is it worth it for young people to enroll in institutions that take a long time to teach a standardized set of things, spend several of their young, potentially productive and energetic years there, and emerge into a world with no jobs for them, skills that are often unsuitable, and hopelessly in debt? Or might they do better with economical, self directed studies that give them a unique set of qualifications without a load of debt?