You're truly of the opinion that the parent comment, particularly the above portion, doesn't strongly imply that the process of obtaining a degree increases you

You're truly of the opinion that the parent comment, particularly the above portion, doesn't strongly imply that the process of obtaining a degree increases your ability to learn? I don't think that is what the parent comment is saying. There are a lot more psychological issues you need to deal with when going it alone. You can spend a lot of time and energy overcoming these issues, or you can go to college and not have to deal with them, or you can ignore them and end up with serious deficiencies. For example there are going to be areas of software development that you dislike (for me anything networking or db related) but are very important to your overall development. Will you invest the time required in the areas you dislike? If you really don't like algorithms will you spend the 300+ hours on it that you should? Quite a lot of people who study via college can and do. A rare few people going it alone can.