Engaging intelligent people in discussion is not the same as doing your homework. I spend a ton of time on LW, but I don't apply a lot of its wisdom in my everyday life. Sometimes I am not even sure how exactly to apply it; and sometimes I simply forget to do it.

If instead I had a place where I could go e.g. twice a week for one hour and had to do some rationality exercises there (such as: choose a problem you have and apply the following techniques to it, or list your medium-term plans and evaluate their probabilities, costs and benefits), I would probably gain much more benefit for less time. In theory I could do the same thing at home, but in reality, I don't. The exercises and homeworks at schools are a tool against procrastination.