This is a biased question, because the people who chose not to go to college are not likely to have a clear understanding of what the experience is like.<p>College for me personally had little to do with academics and much more to do with the people I met once there. When I was leaving high school, I had little idea that this would be the case.
I never went to Uni first time around as I was homeless then.<p>I finally went some 15 years after most people did.<p>I acquired an MSc in Computer Science, having no prior education (no A-levels, Bachelors, etc).<p>What I found was: It's not essential, but it gives you the vocabulary to communicate your ideas with and confidence in what you're doing. Those can be valuable things, but I had already learned through diverse work experience the subject itself.<p>I'd recommend solving real problems over going to a class, but I do think there's a lot of value in taking the reading list for a degree and working through it.
My career in tech has never suffered for not having a college degree.<p>I have lost jobs to people who had advanced degrees, but as far as I know I've never lost out on a job due to lack of a bachelor's.<p>When I'm hiring I care less about your degree than just about anything else. Having a degree definitely won't hurt you, but it's not nearly as much of a qualification in my industry as practical experience is.<p>That said, I've definitely taken college classes when they offered something I wanted to learn, and I would like to do more of that - not for the degree, but because learning stuff is cool.
I do sometimes wish that I had "the college experience", the dorms, the parties, the social aspect and forming long-term friendships with people.<p>However, as it seems that the most common reason people go to college is to be able to get a good job afterwards, and I currently have a well-paying job that I enjoy very much (programming), and no college debt, I call that a success.<p>Having the "college experience" is not worth the thousands of dollars of debt that I see my friends and peers struggling to pay off, especially for those who did not go into a well-paying field like programming.
I chose yes, but I really only have sporadic bouts of regret triggered by a specific event: not being able to grok things. Whenever I cannot wrap my head around a CS concept, I blame my <i>postponement</i> of my degree. Whatever it may be, I feel like I would have learned it at university. If I would have finished, I probably wouldn't have learned most of those things, but at least I wouldn't have that nagging feeling every time.
I voted yes but it's not so much that I regret not going as I regret not being more open-minded while I was in college. All the classes I considered a waste of time are now subjects I find to be interesting (or useful). For instance, psychology seemed totally unrelated to the my EE/CS curriculum, but now the psychology of why people click on one button or link versus another is enthralling.
Yes: So people that expect that not complain
No: Because I was there, and I even give the class about OO because the teacher don't know well, be there mean be 5 years behind the tech, and frankly: Because the "superior education" was not that superior, and the U don't give the kind of education I was hopping for..
Yes, but: I made that decision in 1992, when the ROI calculation was very different. If given the choice right now I would probably <i>not</i> go to college without a scholarship covering most costs, as the financial costs of going are much higher, and the opportunity costs of not going are much lower.
I dropped out of college, so I have first hand experience both ways. For me personally, I don't regret dropping out at all. For some career paths though, college would be very valuable.
Yes because I get bored easily and having a degree would give me more flexibility to switch back and forth between industry and academic jobs. Right now I'm stuck in industry.