[elefanten]

If everyone put in the hours learning something that go into the average PhD, the population would be much more skilled in general. No it's not the only way to gain skill but what you're ignoring is that the overwhelming majority of people stop learning economically valuable skills in their teens. Even just continuing to do some of that throughout your 20's would be a big difference. Academic route isnt the only one to learn but empirically it's a good one because it involves making your life and schedule revolve around it -- something most people need in order to pull it off.

I've never heard anyone claim that "schools are the only way to learn" or that "you must have a degree to be skilled" -- I always hear it framed as "school's a great environment for learning" and "degrees are a useful heuristic for skill"

The good observations of the school-skeptics are not helped along by the ridiculous distortions and exaggerations.