Self-education, or autodidacticism, is learning and obtaining knowledge or skill in an informal setting.
Reading books--particularly non-fiction books--is a great way to increase your knowledge and understanding without attending college or after your schooling is finished.
Though the concept of the university is considered a marvel of human civilization, it's not necessarily imperative to attend college to become educated. Autodidacts are self-taught individuals and are considered self-educated. Learned individuals who hold degrees are considered formally educated.
If a person wishes to incorporate their knowledge and education into a professional field--such as becoming a surgeon, lawyer, professor etc.--it is often required to hold a degree. However, many disciplines do not require formal education.
Many successful entrepreneurs, writers, philosophers, mathematicians, scientists, politicians, rulers, historians, critics and prominent thinkers did not attend college or had limited formal education.
Charles Dickens, for example, stopped his formal education at fifteen and became a promoter of self-education. Mark Twain was a self-taught writer who William Faulkner, a college dropout who won the Nobel Prize in literature, called "the father of American literature."
Studying, researching, experimenting, learning and obtaining knowledge outside of school is all considered self-education.
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