At the risk of being called a South Park philosopher, I think for education the right solution lies somewhere in the middle. I think having people be transplanted away from their families and friends for a 4 year hiatus to focus on learning is a crucial part of becoming a well rounded person. That said, the current methodology of cramming knowledge into students' heads is highly flawed, simply because it doesn't try to leverage the way the brain actually learns new things.
I think a more flexible model for education that still fits within the current "go off to college" model can yield huge improvements while both being possible and practical. For example, students should be able to have more control over the direction of a class. If a topic comes up that a large number of students are interested into going into more depth, then they should be able to 'fork' the class and go thataway.
Additionally, assessment is totally broken. Assessment should be a means of re-enforcing knowledge not verifying that it has been absorbed. There's a whole host of thinking about this, but it really comes down to changing the timing, content, and impact of administered exams towards one that disincentivizes cramming and incentivizes true learning of the material.