I think this is probably spot-on. Anyone who has taught introductory CS courses at an average public college/university (so, not a huge R1 state flagship) can

I think this is probably spot-on. Anyone who has taught introductory CS courses at an average public college/university (so, not a huge R1 state flagship) can tell you that getting into programming is not easy. Plenty of students who I would describe as "smart enough" have an incredibly hard time learning how to program. The bar is a lot higher than most people here seem to believe.