As a university professor (albeit in Art). I 100% agree that university degree is not required to become a great coder. The whole point of the universities is NOT to provide job training — a longer point that becomes increasingly hard to argue as the tuition dollars go up in the USA.

There is a lot of latency in curriculum development. While I can change my syllabus on the fly (and sometimes do), to do anything on the degree level takes about two years. This is half of a student college career. Imagine that in startup (read dog) years :)

As someone who very much benefited from multiple mentorships in the tech sector, I try to steer my students towards internship opportunities as one of the cornerstones of their learning experience. The only pragmatic defence (again, tempered by price-tag) that I want to offer is that a well-rounded university degree teaches you skills that you need in your third or fourth job — usually a customer facing/management gig that does pay more than straight coding. Many devs dread these types of gigs, so for some of the readers this might be irrelevant but… I feel it should at least be a consideration.