I don't know about other fields but I think if someone wants to really learn EE and stuff related to it, they don't necessarily need to attend university (except for some lab courses which I think are mostly useless). University IMO made me a bit more competitive student. Communicating with other students and professors also helped me learn a lot but most of the stuff I've learned I learned from books and other students' notes! I didn't attend most of the classes I took. I just read whatever needed to pass the course. Sometimes with excellent scores. All I'm just saying is it mostly depends on the person [and sometimes on the field of study itself I suppose.]