I was really talking about the specific work (or practice) that goes into being great at something, not about misspent youth. Let's take a computer science deg

I was really talking about the specific work (or practice) that goes into being great at something, not about misspent youth. Let's take a computer science degree and a ten year path to great (whatever that means). If you just measure by time spent, you're maybe coming out of college 5-20% of the way down the path. But I'd argue that the computer science degree isn't specific enough to count nearly that much. Really, you're graduating as an broadly experienced non-expert who then has to put a boat load of time into developing a specific expertise. The value of that time spent outside of college completely trumps the value of the time spent in college, even if the amount of time spent is equivalent.