3. teaches foundational material I likely would never have learned on my own (like math)
4. teaches how to discern truth from nonsense
5. teaches understanding of things that give one a lifetime of enjoyment
As for making college publicly paid for, the difference is making sure you aren't wasting your own money vs being paid to avoid getting a job for 4 years.
Taking this more generally (based on multiple education establishments).
1. For most, nope, not really, it's about passing exams, try thinking of masters courses or doctorates the real cash-grabs. Solving of complex problems in a truely independent way requires being given enough room to fail and having to ask for help.
2. Maybe, but again, rewards are very how-to-exam or how-to-write, how to ingest material maybe but little how to actually learn from the ground up into unexplored new non-textbook territory.
3. Foundational skills are a requirement for most skilled labour, if you don't follow the field you will never use these skills and frankly then a lot of this is wasted and I've both tought and experienced people having their eyes gloss over. Not everyone truely cares 'why?'.
4. Frankly a very bold statement with little direct evidence of research based consistent arguing from undergrads based on a consistent framework/process. If so a lot of discourse wouldn't be so tragically painful in skilled online forms. If you were tought how to embrase realising you're wrong in an argument I might agree, but generally most aren't.
5. This is the same argument for learning the classics before going into finance. My response is still the same, it's nice for the rich...
Post-graduate education has become what all of university is advertised as imo, the undergrad seems to be more and more kinder-garden for adults unfortunately. (Speaking from not being able to shout at students who can't understand the concept of binary numbers anymore...)
Regarding item 3. Yesterday, I had a meeting with an accountant to get my tax returns finished. It was clear they wouldn't be done on time, so he filed an extension.
He asked me if I wanted to pay an estimate or not. I asked what was the interest and penalty for paying late. He replied that I'd be charged 4% interest on late payments. I said I wouldn't worry about it, then, and would pay it when the return was finished.
He laughed, saying he had clients that were paying 29% on credit card debt yet preferred that to paying 4% on debt to the IRS.
I.e. he had many clients who simply did not understand how interest works, and was unable to explain it to them.
I can recount many episodes where understanding math has saved me a boatload of money, where most people get their tailfeathers clipped and never realize it. You can go on saying that most people don't need this knowledge, but I counter with they don't realize how much this lack of knowledge is costing them.
Why, oh why, do people in the US need to go to Higher Education to understand something as simple as percentages? (If this is the case the education system has simply failed)
This is, (to coin your own), grade-scool mathematics, or is treated as such across most of Europe.
Granted a lot of people fail because they simply can't be bothered. I don't buy the self-deprecating excuse of "I'm no good at maths me" from 99% of people repeating what they've seen on the idiot box, they just don't apply themselves. I've known someone math-dyslexic and they made a great deal of effort _not_ to highlight it, they were better than most normal people at simple stuff like this it just took them longer.
You are making an assumption that they are carrying the credit card debt. I pay for nearly everything with a credit card, but I haven't paid interest on a CC in close to a decade.
Without naming names, top league tables globally and all infamous from the UK abroad (and yes was on a hard-science), so no I went to the right university, but I'm highlighting that the main part of "teaching" is done at a post-graduate level.
If you've not pursued academia this far it's akin to that moment about 10 years after you left education where you think, "I wonder what it would have been like had I known this at uni" stage.
My experience (Caltech) is a major counterexample to all your complaints. It doesn't matter if your uni was top tier - if your complaints about it are valid, you went to the wrong one. Sorry about that. I got a great deal of value from my Caltech education, professionally and personally. I have no complaints about it.
P.S. The value you get from a university also can be heavily dependent on the choices you make while attending. I.e which major, which classes, how you went about taking the opportunities available. I chose classes for maximum utility in my expected career.
At University of Washington, for example, you can get an excellent education. But you can also get a worthless one. It all depends on the student making the right choices there.
1. teaches strategies to solve complex problems
2. teaches one how to learn
3. teaches foundational material I likely would never have learned on my own (like math)
4. teaches how to discern truth from nonsense
5. teaches understanding of things that give one a lifetime of enjoyment
As for making college publicly paid for, the difference is making sure you aren't wasting your own money vs being paid to avoid getting a job for 4 years.