Access to a like minded peer group, and researchers to guide you is far harder to get outside of college.

Not because I learnt anything more in economics about CS, but because my first CS courses focused on Eiffel and object oriented programming: it was going to solve all our problems! We all think about objects naturally, so we should all program that way! It's the future of industry and science!

Instead, everything I learnt about CS has now been through trying to solve actual practical problems and applying them to the real world. I now have more experience with stats languages, taught myself lisp, and an employed doing analytics, a field and course that didn't exist and wouldn't have been treated seriously had I raised my objections to the curriculum back at uni.

Academics are more fad driven and fearful than they like to admit, even more so today now that industry dollars and popularity has increasingly permeated the academic system.

My story is a unique point in history you say, and it's unlikely to happen again?

On the contrary, I think it's even more likely to apply to today...

I beg to differ. I wish college was just me in my room for three months and then a final. No hw, nothing.

For subjects like math and CS, these things are great substitutes. For things like mycology or religious studies, less so. I think there is something to be said for using your time in college to focus more on the subjects that are basically unlearnable via other channels.

For things like CS though, just sitting down and spending a weekend watching Tim Roughgarden's YouTube channel will give you more than enough algorithm and data structure knowledge to get a job as a developer or whatever.