I agree that it's easier to read from paper than from a screen. As part of joining IEEE, I received access to the O'Reilly Safari online book collection. I think it's great to have access to all those books, but I can't imagine actually ready one online (cover-to-cover). The biggest advantage to something like Safari is that I don't have to buy a book, and then watch it go out of date with the release of a new version (which makes books even more expensive).

I have been a professional programmer for 30 years. I have a bachelors in IS and an MBA (I finished my masters 8 years after my bachelors). I'm currently pursuing a Masters in CS (with the hope of continuing on for a PhD in CS). The CS degrees are purely for fun (since they will do nothing for my career). Getting a bachelors and masters are important (assuming you apply yourself and aren't getting the degrees for the sake of having the degrees). Experience is equally important. I probably learned more about the software business in my first year out of school than I learned in four years of college. Even if you stop going to college, you'll spend the rest of your career learning new things (our industry changes a lot, and often). If you want to do research, pursue a PhD. You'll probably end up doing this in a University or some kind of think tank. If you want to work in industry, stop after your masters and get a job. My current company doesn't even offer tuition reimbursement for education at the PhD level (which means they don't believe it to be very useful).