NO! It's thousands of intellectual and social bonding experiences happening among the minds that will shape the next two generations. The density of the network means that you can collaborators easily, and that's the benefit of college.
College might be an onion in the varnish, so to speak, but when you talk about "I went to Harvard", you're not talking about visiting the buildings, but being part of the great intellectual conversation, and that's the key point.
About 2,000 students per year are admitted to Harvard (of whom 1,600 or so enroll). There are a few other colleges that offer Harvard-level quality of intellectual conversation. Some plainly do not. At what level of college does the return on attending college for intellectual conversation not meet the cost of attendance?
And why can't people have great intellectual conversations without attending college, as some people do here on HN?
College might be an onion in the varnish, so to speak, but when you talk about "I went to Harvard", you're not talking about visiting the buildings, but being part of the great intellectual conversation, and that's the key point.