In the end, it's about becoming an educated person. Will it help you learn programming? Probably not. But you will learn about the world in ways that are extremely unlikely to happen if you skip college. Things that may seem irrelevant, like the philosophy of science, the fundamentals of microeconomics, or any other "obscure" academic topic. Can you go to the library and read a book about the subject? Sure, but you probably won't even know what books to read. Even then, reading a book pales in comparison to a good course.
Also, I'd take advice from recent dropouts with a grain of salt. In all likelihood, they don't know what they don't know. In other words, life may be good now, but unless they had a broad pre-college education, or read classic literature, science, etc. for hours a day, they probably won't know what they're missing. Their frame of reference on the world is likely very narrow and limited to web development (or startups, or whatever.)
Edit: check out this design school in Germany (relatively close to Eastern Europe). When I was applying to schools, I looked into it and really liked what I saw. (I stayed in the US for a bunch of unrelated reasons).