I've always had a personal explanation that I have nothing but anecdotal evidence to back up. The most important skills that make someone a good coder are that

I've always had a personal explanation that I have nothing but anecdotal evidence to back up. The most important skills that make someone a good coder are that they enjoy solving problems, and are willing to work single-mindedly on something until it is done. If you have those skills, there's really no reason to go to college to learn anything. In fact, I would bet that the graph in the article corresponds inversely to how easy it has become to learn programming on your own. From manually copying code out of a magazine when I was a kid, to stackoverflow today. I submit that the coders who DO get degrees are people who really enjoyed school (for reasons unrelated to learning), people who didn't really know what they wanted to do in life and school was expected of them and/or the path of least resistance, and people who are much more into research than the average developer.