In my own defense, I wouldn't have any problems picking up a new language. The issue is that employeers word job postings so that they can find the perfect candidate. I doubt they would consider an engineer that dosnt have experience in the 12 languages they were looking for, even though I would be completely capable of doing the work. This is why I would consider formal education, rather then learn-it-on your own.
You must not have much experience hiring developers. The "perfect candidate" is something you *might* encounter once or twice in your career. (By "perfect", however, I don't mean bullet points on a resume. They're barely better than useless.) And if you had extensive hiring experience, you'd know that the competition you're facing as a candidate is not all that fierce.
I've always used a "hardware vs. software" analogy, both when I pitched myself to prospective employers for a job that my background may not have been a perfect fit for, and when I've screened candidates for hiring.
If you had your choice between a free state of the art 64-bit laptop with 16GB RAM, that had only the OS and maybe a few utilities, and a free 32-bit 5 year old laptop with 4GB RAM, loaded with a useful applications, which would you choose? You can add software to to the new laptop, but you can't make the old one fast and powerful by today's standards.
To me, the bullets on a resume are analogous to software. But that ability to attack and solve difficult problems and overcome obstacles no matter what, without making excuses, is special. It seems that people either have it or they don't. That's why I consider those abilities part of a person's hardware. (Or firmware, if you will.) I want people who have those abilities.
Lacking knowledge of a particular language should not be viewed as a difficult obstacle to overcome, especially considering the resources that are readily available online for free. Whether it's your motivation or not, for an established professional developer to resort to university courses to learn a language would indicate to me, perhaps incorrectly, a certain passivity that would not weigh in his favor as a hiring candidate.