All-caps interjections aside, let's actually think deeply about this for just a second.
The problem with redefining education in a way that removes a central/higher authority from it, is that the latin origin of the word is educare - it boils down to the phrase "lead out," and an authority figure or mentor figure is implied by the word. Independent learning is all well and good, and many important figures in American history were self-taught, but the term educated simply does not refer to such individuals.
All that said, language does evolve, and with a society that seems to be rapidly progressing away from central authority in areas of culture and information, from the development of alternative systems of teaching like Khan Academy, to independent art movements made possible through the internet & crowd funding, maybe it is time to redefine the word "educated" away from being a primarily institutional term.
Oh, and before we get ahead of ourselves, here's the first definition of "education" you get from Google:
I propose a simple, straightforward alternative definition for education: proficiency in a field, due to accumulated knowledge of relevant subjects. This definition would cover people who developed a talent or trade through self-teaching just as it would those who learned the same from a trade school or college. It also avoids the ideologically driven and ultimately meaningless claptrap in Hawkeye's post about "correct behavior independent of the herd," a phrase that has little to no bearing on much of human knowledge, such as art, with several terms that cannot possibly be measured objectively, like "correctly." And frankly, defining any word through informal slang like "the herd" is just plain ridiculous. No offense intended, Hawkeye. You had an interesting idea here, but you might want to shake off your buzz before continuing further with it.