Here in Argentina, the best colleges are the public ones. And they are free. I study at the National Technology University (UTN) (it's a public university that focuses on Engineering degrees), and we pay an optional fee of 20 pesos argentinos (about 5 dollars) per semester.
I believe college is about opening your mind and adquiring a framework for your life. "Learning to learn" is possibly the best description.
Well, Systems Engineering at the UTN particularly makes you lose a bunch of time teaching you dated ways of solving problems like using the Rational Unified Process, with diagrams, and a whole documentation framework that is completely outdated, instead of teaching you the basics.
They teach you _their way_ of solving problems, and their way is the only way that exists for them. I found this particularly disturbing.
I don't know what year you are attending, but third year left me with a bitter feeling of lost time, that I had to recoup by myself learning outside the uni.
I believe college is about opening your mind and adquiring a framework for your life. "Learning to learn" is possibly the best description.