Do You Think Academia is Crap?

I consider myself a pretty intelligent, entertaining, happy person and I hate school. I love to learn, however, but I do it on my own time in my own way. The internet has really helped out with that since distance learning is becoming terrilby popular as well as ebooks, articles, online tutorials etc. I think employers believe that getting an education shows that you can stick with something and follow through with things. On the other hand learning on your own shows that you are a self starter but you don't have the degree to prove that. Of course if you want to go far in a particular company then the degree will come in handy. Nine times out of ten when deciding who to promote a company will promote a person with a degree who has been there one year over a person with no degree who has been there 15 years. I don't think that is right. To me experience means more than a degree. A degree does not teach you how to deal with irate customers or clients. I know there are probably things that you get from a higher education that you can't get without it but I don't know what that is and it probably varies depending on the degree you are going after. All I know is that when I am in the position to have to hire employees, who they are, what they can show me in practice, how they act, and the skills they have no matter where they learned them are what will be the factors is hiring...not if they hav a degree.