University

Is university something which we should brag about?

This question came to me today when I was talking to a friend, she got a nasty message from a mutual facebook friend who went:
"Actually I AM doing something with my life, so I don't need a job, as I'm going to uni as a straight A student. And my parents will be taking care of me because they also went to uni and got high paying jobs"
Which is an extremely arrogant thing to say, as if somebody who has gone to university is so much better than someone who hasn't...
Some of the highest paid people (Take Lord Sugar - Alan Sugar - for instance) did not go to university but had an entrepreneurial way of thinking, thus making themselves lots of money.
Someone I know hasn't got that piece of paper to say he finished university, but is extremely intelligent and knowledgeable in various subjects because when he found a topic interesting in university he would go deeper into it than the university syllabus taught - causing him to be behind, but knowing more about specific bits. Yet companies would discriminate against him because he hasn't got that one piece of paper saying 'yep I've done this'

And, a lot of english people don't come out of university with that much knowledge. Everyone here can go to university (even if you get straight Us) so how much value does 'just a degree have' (yes the classifications make a difference, but still). And so a lot of English students come  out of university with a 2-2 or a 3rd and a drinking problem.... instead of a 2-1 or a 1st with an attitude which would suit the 'real world'

I know that for me it will be hard to adapt initially because the degree is fun, and not that much hard work (it isn't easy and it's hard work) but the journalism industry is one which is extremely competitive and very fast paced. The areas that I want to go into will not be the safest of areas to live in, and the stories I would like to be reporting on are generally ones that have constant developments.
I, for instance, would love to be in North Africa at the moment to look at the developments there - yes it is horrible what is happening in Japan, but in the meantime the Rebels in Libya are losing and Gaddafi is getting power back by murdering them. Yet the western world doesn't do anything about it...
And the reporting has stopped because the focus has turned on japan..