Crazy story: my son actually did what the author suggested, he talked his way into a free education at Princeton!!!

He audited all the classes he wanted to... no diploma, but what a great experience (and a great story....)

From the article:

Ponder this: If a student wants to study at Princeton, he doesn’t really need to apply or pay tuition. He can simply show up and start taking classes. As a professor, I assure you that we make near-zero effort to stop unofficial education; indeed, the rare, earnestly curious student touches our hearts. At the end of four years at Princeton, though, the guerrilla student would lack one precious thing: a diploma. The fact that almost no one tries this route — saving hundreds of thousands of dollars along the way — ....