Originally Posted by Dude
But this conversation was about a child who wanted to create games, and there aren't research labs at universities doing that.
While I think there is potentially much value in a college education, it may well not be the best preparation for a game designer.

If I had a kid who was interested in game design, I'd try to arrange for some mentoring by game design professionals before making a decision one way or the other about college. It could well be that college does not make sense given the culture of that business. And college would still be an option later on. (But perhaps this has already been discussed - I didn't read through all the pages of this thread.)