I wonder what the author thinks about all of the computer scientists who pioneered the industry before there were universities teaching computer science?
Good college students learn to ask a lot of questions and to learn from the answers.
That being said, people who don't 'go to school' but have a 'learning lifestyle' (which is to say always curious, always reading, always tinkering with a variety of ideas) can get just as good as any university student can. The challenge for them is to convince an employer that they are in fact well educated on the topics and tools they will be expected to use to do their job. If they start their own company, well they don't really have to convince anyone since the results speak for themselves.
well, i always chuckle when people use this (admittedly worn out ex) for the their argument, but folks like Bill Gates, anyone, eh? ...well, guess it's not like he created "Google"? alright, sarcasm aside, I don't think there's any doubt about the importance of a college degree to get a broad perspective on understanding computational what-have-yous, esp compared to learning just a language or two, but the author overstates his point a bit -- of course exceptions are plenty where people can succeed w/o degrees, though i'd just imagine less likely.
A general CS degree just distills the good parts out of those fields and mixes in courses teaching the foundations of computer and systems architecture. (In general anyway)