There is time to learn that your habits need to be changed in order to be successful in the long-term.
There is more support for investigating things that you think are worth investigating, and there can be positive reinforcement that some people find meaningful (e.g., repsect for presenting at student conferences) instead of "just" a paycheck.
University certainly provides a way to establish your credibility and build a portfolio that can be broader than $dayjob gives you the opportunity to do.
At the university there is very easy access to people with a very broad skill set. No need to beg HR to allow you to hire an ML specialist... just go down the hall and talk to Professor X.
It's not perfect, and not everyone makes as much of it as they could, but there are big plusses to the university system.
In my world there was always lack of time cuz other courses wanted their important^tm projects too, so instead of deep dive into fancy topics that was just pass and move on and learn it yourself
In hs i liked math, in higher edu institution i had no time for it
But ive been working full time almost whole time
What???
It is incredibly stressful environment cuz if you fail then youll have to spend more time (so less vacations), maybe even pay some $$ or at worst have to take course again