I had been mowing yards since I was in jr high. Unfortunately, my parents pushed me to take on more and more and more work, meaning my school work suffered. I think they realized their mistake and corrected it for my siblings, but that didn't help me much.
I love the idea of university. The classical idea, that of Plato's Akadēmia. The idea of learning to better oneself and society with no other purpose. That of course is almost in direct contract to the modern university system, which is more of high school part II combined with a job training center and somehow doing neither one very well at the lower level and is pretty much solely a networking center at the Ivy League level, while meanwhile burning out professors by pushing them to constantly publish papers no one reads instead of teaching.
On one hand, I kind of see all these online schools and classes as a nod towards the classical model, but at the same time it's just more of the same and possibly less. I've signed up for some of the Harvard online classes. They are possibly the worst of both worlds, and getting in contact with anyone seems a chore. Despite the prof being distracted by all the admin BS around him, at least there are office hours at a real university, but at the online schools... send an email and pray it gets an answer..
I actually think some of these small community colleges are more valuable that the big universities. They have more vocational programs and they have a more personable approach to pretty much everything. I attended one, then transferred to a university. The classes were just so much better at the lower level. I think there is a lot of benefit to people taking that route.