I agree with you on everything except that he should skip college. This would land him a salaried job at a lot of places, but if he's truly interested in computer design he would probably want to work at IBM/Intel/AMD research departments and they certainly require a college education to just get through the interview filters.
Not to mention there is a lot of stuff he could learn at college that would actually be tremendously useful if he wants to continue in this path. Everything from the physics of conductors to more advanced electronics design are things that can be quite hard to pick up from tutorials online.
Not to mention there is a lot of stuff he could learn at college that would actually be tremendously useful if he wants to continue in this path. Everything from the physics of conductors to more advanced electronics design are things that can be quite hard to pick up from tutorials online.