To compare yourself to Bill Gates, Claude Monet, and Albert Einstein inter alios is preposterous. If you were that intelligent or that talented your gift would have been discovered a long time ago and you would have been sent to a school for gifted children... Oh wait, you would have dropped out of gifted school, but nevermind, Einstein himself was not regarded as a genius back when he was a child (so at least there's some hope for you). Speaking of Einstein, last time I checked he had a PhD in Physics and a PhD in Mathematics, which I believed he obtained from an university, not the school of hardknocks.
The most important thing to remember is that for every kid who drops out of college, starts his own company, and becomes a multibillionare, there are millions more who have to settle with low level blue collar jobs, like mixing concrete or flipping burgers at McDonalds. Sure, some are very succesful, but someone also wins the lottery every week.
"Once you grow older and have a spouse and children, you may not have that luxury. So college steals some of our most valuable years." Noone needs to marry and have children.
"You’d be hard pressed to find a successful individual who isn’t obsessed with learning." A valid argument. If you have a passion for something, and have a sense of direction life, college might just be a waste of time. But you will also need an entrepeneurial spirit, and the right personality. Losers with a passion for learning are a dime dozen just like recent college grads are.
I'm glad I went to college b/c at least now I don't have to make excuses for why I didn't college, like you.