I get where you are coming from, I really do, I've worked with those self starters. I worked with a guy without any education past HS and he was great, he taught me a lot.

But the example was about a shop keeper playing candy crush on their phone, and you're relating it to experience with your highly motivated and bright colleagues working at your programming language organization, people I'm assuming you associate with based on their programming aptitude and innate interest in programming languages. How many shop keepers (the kind OP is referring to we're not talking about Good Will Hunting here) do you work with at your organization?

As an educator dealing with 20-somethings who are in the position of finding employment, I don't think what you're suggesting can scale. It's not a path the 100+ students I teach every semester can take. These students cannot pick up a leetcode book and study for 3 weeks and land a job at FAANG. Some of them have trouble landing a FAANG job with the degree, and the work experience, and project experience.

"The people with get-up-and-go are going to find a way get what they want."

Sure, this is just saying that the cream rises to the top. Maybe a handful of students could do it, but 90% of the rest of them not going to, so they need alternatives. And we need to provide those alternatives because like I said, you can't build an economy from cream.

95% of the people need a framework to educate themselves, they can't just go to youtube.com and come away with the ability to pass a Google interview in 3 weeks. They need focused, intensive study. A tight feeback loop. The ability to get 1:1 time with an expert to move past hurdles. The ability to work closely with peers and to work in groups. Broad and varied perspectives. Instruction from actual experts (which I will point out your college had and most people don't). You know, a real education.