It's more that geeks oppose old institutions having a monopoly on knowledge than that they oppose any sort of knowledge at all. Maybe there's some resistance to the rigid, hierarchical structure of "intellectualism" as well.
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.
I personally feel the image that they are or are trying to cultivate a monopoly is a misguided perception based on jealousy, resentment, etc
Think of it as applied Pareto: find the top 20 who do 80% of the work, and learn from them so you can move into them.
One of the most absolutely valuable pieces of 'research' I have done as part of my Master's is learning about systems that were designed and built before 1980. Then, learning about how many of those ideas were recycled and or forgotten in the trash heap behind Unix's house.
It's the whole idea that someone thinks their answer is right because someone dropped two hundred grand on an education they could have gotten for a dollar fifty in late fees at the public library.
I hear it all the time, "is he good engineer?" "yeah, he went to <who fucking cares>"
If that kind of thinking is anti-intellectual than sign me up for the anti-intellectual camp.
Then you're doing it wrong. Like many things in life, what you get out is proportional to what you put in.
I'm currently an undergraduate and I am having an exceptional experience. Two summers ago, I worked with a professor one-on-one to build a compiler for a subset of Scheme. From last summer through to the fall of 2010, I was working at Intuit which is by no means the epitome of excellent software engineering, but I got to live in San Diego, experience a whole new culture, learn to sail, and experience software engineering in the "real world".
Finally, this summer and fall, I get to work with Olin Shivers (yes, him[1]) and some erudite, poignant grad students.
Even in classes, you can take advantage of having an expert to ask questions of, and believe me, I take full advantage of it. I've spent hours inquiring about the LHC, Mandarin idioms, and the history behind and intricacies of English grammar rules during my time here.
The school system is an opt-in, opportunity machine.
carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero
You might say that this is a learning experience on its own - how to cope with heavy workload. But:
a) when I look at myself and at others it definitely means that at some point you start to study for the sake of studying, not understanding
b) I could (arguably) create more value for my life and possibly the world, as well as learning to cope with pressure, by investing so much energy in other endeavors