Man, you should have seen the european demoscene in the 90s, half of the geniuses had the same main obstacle: homework from school.
Despite what it may seem IT is still in its infancy which means that we work in a field where pure affinity for the subject and raw curiosity-driven brain power (or in some case, dedication to the task), as well as a couple hundred euros worth of hardware, is enough to get into the most complex parts and sometime redefine them.
Access to all the papers and education you need is insanly open on the internet (unlike other fields), as well as trillions of line of code for you to explore. The only two limits are yourself, and time.
Which is not to say that training and experience have no role, but IT as a field is extremly large and for many parts we're still in an early uncharted phase, so discovery is made by explorers and dedicated people[1].
Still, most dev would gain a lot by going through a good algorithmic course.
[1] While talking about dedication, special mention to the linux everywhere guys. I will never not smile at the idea that some of the best IT protections in the world, costing millions upon millions, from the Xbox to HD-DVD to whatever, were brought down because someone wanted to run it on linux.