While that's true, most of the valuable employees have 1 top skill: communication. That's neither trained nor witnessed by having gone through 2 years of I-did-this-alone-at-home.

Learning how to learn is more of a master skill, under which learning tech or communication falls.

Communication is critical but can lead to non-tech people talking about tech, too. Need both.

Theres nothing about self-directed learning that says one couldn’t do it on the job, or doing other things. Work integrated learning one example.

Conversely, suffering group work in post secondary doesn’t always guarantee excellent communication skills. It’s another way (for the few) to learn to work with people who might not be able to work with each other. There is lots of self directed learning needed in post secondary too, only they call it learning how to think.

This program in question appears to be part time.. which leaves time to not be alone at home and instead be scrolling the world through a little window.

Does the 4 year education in college improve that skill better?

Most likely, the self-taught person is also doing some other job, etc as well. So, he is managing a tougher-than-normal schedule, and communication/planning comes into play for sure.

Not sure about the loner generally having an edge over college here. I had to communicate, collaborate and team work plenty back in the college days.