Well yes and no, I mean there's picking up skills, which is great, but if you're doing it as a means of career advancement at some point those skills have to have an offline demonstration / application and it's kind of hard to tell where you're at without feedback from an instructor (if this is the kind of course I'm thinking about - like MIT has open courseware which is just the materials) also, how do you put that on, say, a resume? In my experience most people who look at resumes poo-poo something less than an established degree/certificate but maybe that could change?

Anyway, the answer for all this is free post-secondary education to any American who wants it but I know, how you gonna pay for that