The idea that institutions have a monopoly on knowledge is starting to become preposterous. The closest thing to a monopoly is a few journals, but their days are numbered. The monopoly doesn't exist. There is absolutely nothing stopping anyone from buying any textbook and learning what they want to learn, from buying all the tools they need and teaching themselves. At the end of the day, you can learn anything anyone else learned going to college. If you are upset because you can't get a job because you don't have a degree to prove what you know, then that's something you need to take up with the companies that are doing the hiring.

How can there be a monopoly when there are hundreds to thousands of individual institutions competing for each other? Of course, college isn't free or unencumbered by some silly rules, but neither is buying an iPhone.