I think the takeaway point from this is how dumb it is that most organizations value credentials over experience. It shouldn't come as a surprise that someone who has a decade of work experience in the field can sail through a college curriculum like this, and it is really a failing of society more broadly if the author feels that he needs to get a diploma to be taken seriously.
It's not dumb, it just hides a cynical compromise. Companies need to wade through tons of applications, young people want a path through which they have some degree of certainty (pun semi-intended) that their work will lead to social capital + being with other people their age in a common setting. The college experience leaves no one very satisfied but many chunks of society tolerably satisfied.
Of course, the social contract is weakening and a new compromise will have to be found. That may simply be the broader acceptance of online degrees and certificates.
