I'm not sure what supports some of these aggressive generalizations.
> You have to pay homage to various absurd beliefs
Really? Which ones? I don't recall having to "pay homage" to anything during my time in higher ed., must less any absurd beliefs. What do you have in mind here?
> You have to...contribute money to them
I do? I guess I paid tuition, if that's what you mean. But isn't it pretty normal for an institution to require some form of payment in exchange for services? And it wasn't all that much actually, because I was lucky to be able to attend a reasonably high-quality public university within my state. (Of course, one might object to the amount in particular cases.) And I haven't contributed any money since. Certainly nobody has tried to forced me to. in reality, all this amounts to is getting a few annoying emails.
> You have to...worship the value of it no matter what the apparent merit of it is
I don't think so. I don't worship the value of my diploma and never have. (Though I have found it very useful in certain endeavors.) The college police have never showed up at my door and ordered me to show more respect. In fact, my own perception is that skepticism of the value of higher ed. (beyond its credentialing function and possibly its ability ro embed students in certain social networks) is a very fashionable view right now.
What massive group of people is not indistinguishable from a cult? A book exists that argues that all mass movements (religion, cults, political parties) have very similar characteristics and can be analyzed with the same lens. I have no doubt that "supporters of X" can also be put in the same group where in this case X = higher education.
I've never read this book but it was published several decades ago and I agree with the premise. Unfortunately I forgot which book it was so this comment is partly an effort to see if anyone else knows which book this is so I can finally get around to reading it.
The book you might be referring to is "The True Believer" by Eric Hoffer. Published in 1951. It's about 175 pages. If you've ever wondered why political correctness, BLM and anti-racism resemble a religion (non-theistic) it is definitely worth a read.
*edit
I would have liked to remove the part about political correctness, BLM and anti-racism as it does nothing to contribute to the discussion and the question can be answered without a reference to any of those things. I will not, because to do so feels misleading.
In general, I appreciate how old the book is because its removed from all modern political discussion yet the advice applies the same. I also appreciate how it has fans on all sides of the political aisle (details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer).
> all mass movements (religion, cults, political parties) have very similar characteristics and can be analyzed with the same lens.
I think this is bang-on, and it's evident in the flattening that every concept undergoes when it makes contact with the masses. But I don't know if the descriptor "mass movement" applies very cleanly to institutions like higher education. They certainly have different characteristics, in that institutions nominally have somewhat-centralized authority while mass movements are driven by the collective whims of the masses.
Too bad you went to a bad college. But that's the problem with the US model, there is no quality control (regional accreditation sets a very low bar, as the lawsuits the Department of Education show), and especially first-generation students have no clue how to make the best of the environment and what to do when things go wrong.
Interesting take that self-directed development is a 'heresy' of academia, even more so, it's considered hokey and invalid. I've noticed that's somewhat the case, there's an attitude that Formal Education is the only education. I didn't even go to a 'bad college' like another commenter suggested would have an attitude like this.
I've had students try to tell me off (with great vitriol too) for not being a 'real developer' since I lack a CS degree or a Software XYZ degree, despite having worked as a developer for a while. Even professors were skeptical about being able to break into the industry. I did manage it, and it was surprisingly easy to do, which made me scratch my head about where those beliefs came from in the first place.
While I agree with you, the term "computer science" has not had a consistent definition over the years.
I have a degree in "Computer Science" (1987) but it was not a math program. It would not surprise me to learn today that there are many existing "computer science" programs that are not math degrees.
