> All of the above is highly dependent on where you go.

That's one of the few claims I agree with. I can only speak for engineering majors, but my college experience was radically different from the author's. Whether the piece of paper my classmates and I walked out with mattered is another story, but at least the first three years of education were invaluable.

> This really applies to tech, where honestly people don't really give two shits about your degree if you are a good programmer or have experience on hot projects.

Half-true. Even though I had been programming since middle school, my college experience with EECS taught me a lot technically and socially. It granted a far broader network faster than any job has. On top of that, it gave vast access to internship programs, which taught everyone involved a lot about industry. And that came in handy after graduating; having the knowledge that I could get a high-paying job almost anywhere at anytime allowed me to take far greater personal financial risks with my startup than I would have been comfortable otherwise.

> If you expect to learn skills that will train you for a job, prepare to be disappointed going to a four year college. You aren't going to learn anything that is directly applicable to any job.

I completely disagree. Granted it all comes down to your major, but if you take engineering at a top school (which does not include Yale), this is highly untrue. The knowledge I learned in college was critical to developing my startup from a technological standpoint; operating systems, programming languages, artificial intelligence, probability, algorithms, and databases are just a few of the subjects which have flowed into it. And yes, you can just "read a book", but that is no substitute for being in the thick of it through collaborative group-work. Technically, being exposed to vast numbers of patterns is essential, and college is a prime place for that to happen. I know virtually no one who possesses the same technical breadth of those that went through my program (or equivalent).

> It didn't prepare me mentally for startups. College was really an exercise in credentialing within a rigidly defined system, and didn't prepare me to think outside-the-box, live the consequences of my own actions, or really exist on my own in the real world at all.

It's amazing what a difference a major can make. Working on ill-defined team projects that would last well over 200 hours in a single semester was a great precursor to the startup world. And college is an excellent training ground to build essential social skills.

> In my final year I was taking classes two days a week for only two hours a day (most of them intros, perversely). Keep in mind that I was a full time student without a job at one of the best universities in the country.

If your goal is to just get a degree, sure, you can slack by. If you want to take the maximum advantage of courses, this will not be true. Especially in engineering (architecture is another example I've seen), you will work your ass off and learn a lot.

> For a lot of students, college is a vacation, and it is a bunch of bullshit if we pretend otherwise.

The only sustained vacation during my college years was Winter Break. Hell, the summer internships I had offered way more of a vacation than college did. Again, if you are going to college, you need to take full advantage of it.