On the topic, these people think that the only way to make money is by being employed by others, the only way to get in a job is by getting a degree.
A lot of people learned to make games by themselves, on their own computer or their parent's computer because they loved to play them and then moved to try their hand at it.
This is how it worked when I was a teen, a small group of guys (yes guys) went on to try to make games. I was asked to make graphics but refused, because I tend to pass on opportunities. Anyway, I think one of them ended up working for Ubisoft, but I lost contact with him. Like a lot of things, what you learn in school is only part of the story, a lot of people display their skills before even that time. Maybe you can play the inclusivity game with artists and such, but when it's time to resolve a quadratic operation or develop some optimized path funding algorithm you can't "fake it until you make it", nor can you be "inclusive" about who does the task, no matter how racist you think mathematics are.
Same for all kind of programmers and artists.
If you are not hired by someone in the business go make a game and prove yourself. If you are this good they will be the ones that are made fools for not taking advantage of the opportunity to have you work on their team.
This is not like it was hard to publish on steam or if there was not a million gaming sites (especially the big ones) that will push your game because you are part of X 'historically oppressed" group. They're probably going to put that in the very first sentence of the very first paragraph of their coverage, but at least you will get a leg up in the industry, one that is refused to anyone who did not win the intersectional lottery.