Education, without the degree

"You don't have to go to college."
This is the sincere advice I've started giving to parents and teens about going to a four-year, residential, selective college, which has become expensive, wasteful, and hard to justify. I've lived next to Boston's college campuses for almost 20 years, and statistics show many of the students I've met are headed to debt and disappointment. Fortunately, the technology revolution is providing new ways to become highly educated, and "going to college" is no longer mandatory for so many who believe that it is.