Indeed. I've long felt that most undergrad students would be better served by a typical college minus the formal classes. Basically dorms and all the other amenities found in a typical college campus, where you mainly gain life skills and mingle with other people your age. Because most people I met at an average 4-year school were there because it's a societal expectation among certain classes, it's less scary than just getting a job and figuring out life completely on your own, and it is 10x-100x easier to make friends at college than just "out in the world." Not on the list: to learn from college classes, which at an average school teach you less than you'd get from a $200 a year subscription to Great Courses Plus or Brilliant. Or free from Khan Academy.

I know a few very special schools give undergrads access to brilliant minds in their field, but I also have been told that undergrads at those schools are mostly taught by grad students, so I'm not sure that Ivies provide a lot either, beyond the opportunity to hobnob with the legacies that will be running Goldman Sachs in 20 years.