University (especially masters) prepared me for a professional life in a number of ways. It taught me how to absorb information quickly and in vast quantities. It taught me how to organize and take useful notes. It taught me how to organize my ideas, and a long list of other things.

Here’s the thing though, I went to a small state university. Fully accredited with good programs, but still small and rural. I also studied Finance instead of computer science since I had realized that just about all CS degrees I could afford were trash and I already knew more about systems than they could teach (it was obvious that I wasn’t going to need COBOL, Pascal, or VAX knowledge). The second plot twist is that I only sat in the masters degree classes to keep my now wife company. I did the papers and studied for the tests with her for the hell of it.

The bottom line is that although I believe that a college education is very useful, I do not see the benefit delta between a cheap state university and an Ivy league school. The value of those pricey schools is in the network of friends you develop, IMHO.