Force the students to get involved with the community and let them choose if they want to dive in deeper or not. In my personal experiences as a student I hated Java because of the community but found home with C users who were more friendly (I was young and ignorant to the fact that one forum can be friendlier than another). Let them dive into an academic forum for phone development or what have you and you'll find students doing work on their own time to bring to school and tinker with.
Quite personally I find myself expressing some of the view points from the article but see it from a different angle.
I'll fully admit my university was under-par. I came out near the top of my class and was one of the 25% of the graduating class that landed a job immediately (I actually had multiple offers). What I felt coming out was that all the work that *I* put into university was what caused my "successful" outcome. I try to stay humble and credit those who were there along the way (profs/peers) but I still often feel that it was a direct result of my efforts as to why I ended up where I am.
Having said that if you take that view point and twist it, it can sound as if I think I am here solely as a result of my own actions which is not true. I see many people in my field who share this view and as a result make the leap forward and say that their university had nothing to do with their success and their own drive would have landed them in the same position they are in now. Keep extending the argument and you come full circle to the idea that "college was a waste of time" which is more often then not very untrue.
Now the only real argument that I have against this view when people take it that far is to ask them what they've accomplished since graduation besides a job. Can they tell me they've continued to learn multiple programming languages or other related items at the same rate? What about practical applications of knowledge? What have they to show for their months/years post-degree? The obvious factor that I see people missing is the motivation that peers and others around you provide in the university or education environment...
/rant
The biggest difference between time and space is that you can't reuse time. -- Merrick Furst