There are a lot of institutional protections in the legal system for colleges (as sources of mandatory credentials for many occupations), and a great deal of preferential funding of colleges. But many learners can learn as much or more outside of college as in it, and as long as learners can find gainful employment without college credentials, colleges will be under pressure to justify their continued existence.
Interesting posts. I actually wrote this over three years ago, but somehow never got around to actually publishing it on my blog. It seems kind of cliche now, but I thought it was well-written enough to be worth posting.
http://learninfreedom.org/School_obsolete.html
There are a lot of institutional protections in the legal system for colleges (as sources of mandatory credentials for many occupations), and a great deal of preferential funding of colleges. But many learners can learn as much or more outside of college as in it, and as long as learners can find gainful employment without college credentials, colleges will be under pressure to justify their continued existence.
After edit:
pg's thoughts on a closely related subject:
http://paulgraham.com/credentials.html