Thanks for answering, Patrick. Now brace for a step by step debunking of your arguments.

1 — University degrees are worthless:

Are you kidding me? Good luck trying to be a medical doctor, a lawyer, or a nuclear physicist studying from your kitchen.

2 — The content is out of date, and most people can pass the exams with cramming and a reasonable short term memory! Content is forgotten within a week!

Not really. I know pretty good curricula that are constantly updated. Have a look at CS50 or computer vision courses from Stanford or MIT.

3 — They pay a lot of money for content and knowledge that is often available free on the internet.

Again, you are limiting your argument to rich countries. College is free in most countries (I did not pay a dime for precious knowledge). However, it is a good idea to complement real courses with online courses.

4 — Having a credential that doesn’t guarantee a job, as can be seen by the tens of thousands of unemployed university graduates around the world.

Not guarantee maybe, but a necessary condition. Think again in global terms. And do check any job offer online. Let me know when you find one that says: “no college education is needed.”

5 — The quality of many universities suck … and especially in the Developing Economies.

That is simply not true. I don’t know where you got this idea from. The best professors I had were in my home country (a low-income country). The only problem is that we did not have money to fund experimental research. But the theory is robust: Math, physics, etc.

Finally, try to picture a child in a low-income country aspiring to be a great lawyer one day. Would you give him the advice you just did? I think not.