Ladios posted a link to some open jobs in the gaming industry in another thread and since that's where I'm planning on working (In ~10 years or so) I took a look at the open jobs. Shifting thorough jobs like 3D/2D/UI/Concept artist, level designer, programmer and so on I was quite surprised at the skills these companies require. Where are supposed to learn this stuff? Are the actual schools that teach things like 2D computer art, 3D modeling, and programming? I would certainly benefit from such institutions.
be on a mod team, go to college to learn some of the stuff.
some of the developers of the 'mechwarrior living legends' mod were hired on by crytek (crysis developers) because of their amazing work, and egosoft (x-universe series, space combat + trading games) hires people that make amazing mods for their games to help work on sequels.
a college degree alone in most of those stuff is effectively meaningless, you need a portfolio of works (mods, models, artwork, etc) to get hired anywhere.