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iDante comments on College courses versus LessWrong - Less Wrong
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Nobody who knows what they're talking about would ever suggest going to college for the purpose of getting an education. We have the Internet for that. If you need structure in your life (e.g., forced to wake up early 5x/week), or you need motivation (e.g., want to learn math but keep procrastinating), or something like that, and a degree would help you out (e.g., because you're young and you're looking for an entry-level position in a particular industry), then by all means, go to college. But if you just want to learn, then you're wasting your time.
Think about it this way. Not even getting into the messed up incentive structure of the university system, just consider how random your professors are. You're confined to a particular university in a particular location. On the Internet, on the other hand, you can go wherever you want, and find the particular niche community you need for what you're working on. And with this, we come to a more direct answer to your question: Reading Less Wrong would probably be much more useful than taking whatever college course you would end up in on the subjects most relevant here (basic epistemology, etc), but if you want to start learning math or physics for example, then Less Wrong wouldn't be of much use, and instead you'd want to for example check out Amazon for textbook reviews, and then head on over to a good forum on the topic (Physics Forums, perhaps?).
I've learned more about physics from school than I would have learned on my own, and I think your comment is pessimistic. University has advantages over the internet, even if your goal is simply to learn material.
Why did you learn more about physics from school than you would have on your own? Was it because of the external motivation? Or was it because the quality of instruction was better than if you had made use of whichever textbook got the best reviews on Amazon, and then asked questions on Physics Forums?
External motivation is a huge part. Part of it is just the fact that my entire job right now is to learn physics and impress professors. Much of my learning happens in class, but much of it also happens in the labs that I work and from the grad students that I bother. Another overlooked advantage is the enormous group of peers who are learning the exact same material as me at the same time as me. Physics forums doesn't even come close to this utility. (edit edit: ##physics on freenode is pretty good source too)
This all combined is well worth the price tag to me. For others it may not be; I'm just one data point after all ;)
edit: lots of people don't take advantage of their university of course, but they tend to be the sort on the bottom end, not the top, which is who I think you're addressing.
Exactly. The peer pressure. It's not the same if those peers are merely online; and sometimes you don't even have that.
Perhaps one day we will have something analogical to coworking... colearning. I could imagine colearning "schools" where people come to learn from online materials, and then discuss with their peers. But there would have to be many people doing this in the same area, so that you could always find people learning the same thing as you do.