I do not disagree with your last point but I don't think I would have gotten into programming if it wasn't for getting my feet wet in school. I guess what works for me, may not work for someone else.
I do feel like online learning can be MUCH MUCH quicker, as no time is wasted on poorly designed assignments. I feel like it is much more optimized especially comparing it to my state school experience.
School is also how I got heavily involved in programming, but I feel like its more-so due to how difficult it is to self-teach programming. I'd imagine the number of people who tried to pick up native android as their first platform and then decided that programming wasn't for them must be quite large.
I do feel like online learning can be MUCH MUCH quicker, as no time is wasted on poorly designed assignments. I feel like it is much more optimized especially comparing it to my state school experience.