“There’s absolutely no reason that this exact type of arrangement can’t work with young men getting started in life.”
It’s a matter of motivation. If you are content to live in mom’s basement and play computer games all day, there is really no reason to do it. That’s why I hate the certification route. Trying to get into the IT world with as little effort as possible is bad mojo. I’ve known too many people driven to bad ends because they got into the IT world for the money and hated it.
One think we do at VT is make the incoming CS majors do Linux on their laptops. I think the rationale is this: If you can’t install and use Linux, you have no business as a CS major.