People will or will not go to college for various reasons. College can be a great opportunity to exapnd your horizons and to learn more about what you might want to do with your life. Some people already know what they want to do and if it doesn't require a college education (like stock broking was mentioned, and also a lot of IT jobs), then they might not want to attend. But I think some of the benefits of going to college (even though it has a lot of disadvantages) are - leadiing a relatively free and independent lifestyle (because you have the parents, but not really), meeting a whole lot of new people who may have similar interests to you, learning about things that may interest you (I'm taking an eroticism in Rennaisance class now), and as mentioned before, making all those important connections that will help you later on in life. And dialectics, sorry you feel that Columbia is full of " a lot of screaming elitist preppy assholes who think they are god's gift to the world." My undergrad experiences so far have not been quite the same, although I must admit the occasional "know it all", but what school doesn't have those?