I agree that colleges are really expensive and they are getting more expensive by day. This still does not take away the fact that college education and, in larger context, the existence of (high-reputation) Universities, is vital to society. The solution is to make colleges less expensive somehow, not to replace colleges with unregulated mentorships (which as I said earlier, will be effective only in hands of good mentors). There are numerous countries where college education is highly subsidized by the Government (example, India, where I went to college -- paid a total of $120/year as fees, for a top college). Universities also employ many scientists as professors and have a very good research output, that certainly has a bearing on our scientific progress.
We were discussing Uni as useful to make connections (which it really isn't better than networking), so I don't at all want the research function to go away - the NSF/NIH should be subsidized with the money from the government education funding that used to indirectly fund them.
I also would contend, as studies show, that most Uni students come out without an appreciable increase in skills - compared with mentor/protege I think this underperforms society.
