@Fulcrum.013 University isn't the only way how to get knowledge. The main purpose of university is to keep students motivated to learn and to help them access the knowledge (or research) they have (which universities, at least in Europe, have publicly available to general public, not just students).
In the areas which are my hobbies I never finished a degree (yet I've had numerous lectures in the areas, as it was possible to take them while on university ... also, bonus credits!). Yet I don't work in those industries, and I'm just a hobbyist. I may although join one at one point - as I'd like to start a company in that area too.
From experience, I have to disagree with @Oberon_Command - universities often tend to participate in research, and be as state of the art as possible. This will of course fluctuate based on quality of the university and of course professors and assistants themselves (on university where I studied this fluctuated a lot - some subjects were really state of the art, while some were quite outdated).
University projects were sometimes quite large though, yet only voluntary. I spent quite a time in graphics laboratory there - there were just few people regularly visiting (3 or 4). Worked on state of the art GPU path tracers in there (these were under contract in the end - so it also helped me financially, and I was working in a team - very good experience), also some image processing effects, etc.
In addition most of the people who did master's (or beyond) actually worked either for some company, or had contracts which required them to actually work with the code - most of them work either in the software industry now, or started their own company in software industry. The ones that weren't coding in addition (to help them solve problems, to earn some money on side or to get more experience ... whatever was the motivation), they simply don't work in the industry at all.
This was truth for EVERY branch (be it computer graphics, artificial intelligence, etc.) that was on the university.