I really dislike the idea of providing a monetary incentive for kids to stop going to school. People who are not well-off are going to be pressured into taking this path, causing a further arbitrary wealth gap within the population.
But the alternative path is not necessarily one of less learning. Many people, both gifted and not, detest academics and feel school is a kind of prison or CAFO. This would give them more options. It would give bullied kids more options too, or kids looking to get away from gang activity in their (bad) school.
> But the alternative path is not necessarily one of less learning
The problem is this still doesn't solve the wage gap. Businesses look for concrete ways to determine someone's skill, and a Diploma/GED and college education provide them easy standards to set for who can even get to the interview process. Not many CS jobs will take anyone who only lists "self-taught", even if they have some amazing code work linked (this is especially true for recruiters).
I can relate- as a 16-year-old teenager with soldering abilities, knowledge of OS X, Windows, and Linux (including data recovery) it was quite saddening / depressing (I honesly don't know the right word to describe it) to hear that I couldn't get a job, or even an apprenticeship at any of the local computer repair shops because I wasn't old enough.
This isn't a 1:1 comparison, because being young is a legal problem, but I definitely feel your pain- and the pain of others in that situation- it's a serious downer and quite demoralizing for someone to say no just because you don't have a certificate (in this case, a DL). It's honestly really hard to get someone to take a chance on you.
That's why I don't mention being self taught anywhere in a resume. If it comes up in a phone screen or interview I'll explain, but other that, I hope "out of site, out of mind" will come into play
