Sounds like you had a bad experience with college but I think you raised a couple of good points:

- college is in every way, dumped on teenagers as THE ONLY way forward

Absolutely true in my experience. High schools are entirely structured around two things: standardized test performance, and pushing kids into college. If you are not a college-bound kid, you essentially don't exist.

- No one is there to mature. No one is there to improve their concept of individuality. No one goes to college to learn for the sake of learning.

"No one" is too strong, but I think this is true for the majority. Most people in an undergraduate program (and probably also a majority in Master's programs) are there because they think it is the path to a good job. Because that is what has been drummed into them since elementary school. Learning, expanding horizons, etc. are secondary.

If most people at college were there simply for the sake of learning, enrollment would be a small fraction of what it is.

>No one goes to college to learn for the sake of learning.

I studied Ancient Near Eastern Studies and Historical Linguistics, neither of which is part of anyone's plan for getting rich. But I studied those things because I was interested in them, purely for the sake of learning without any hope of financial reward.

Also, I made the best friends of my life in college, many of whom, 20 years later, are still my best friends.

Overall, I feel like I matured a lot in college.

As for my own kids, I'm encouraging them to do what I think will be best for them and their future based on their skills and temperment. My two oldest I encouraged to go to college. But my third I am strongly encouraging to go to trade school. I encouraged the two oldest to study whatever made them happy in college and to not worry about studying to make money. One is studying non-profit management and the other is studying animal behavioral psychology (she loves working with dogs). Neither of those are good career paths, but they are things they enjoy learning.

You don't need to pay tens of thousands of dollars for college. My wife and I graduated without any student debt. My two oldest are about halfway through and so far they have no debt either (through a combination of working their way through college and academic scholarships).

You are claiming a lot of absolutes in this. I attended college to expand my mind, learn new things, and mature into an adult. I went to a large but reasonably prices state school and did everything you said no one does. I don't even use my degree but going through thought me a lot of lessons I still use (working well with people I don't know, learning things quickly and applying them, making new friends). I, and I bet a lot of others, learned and grew a lot during University with out the notion of finding a career.