This is definitely part of it, but after working - and hiring - in the software industry for several decades I can say that a university grad has probably at least heard of relational algebra or taken a course that covered costing algorithms. Do they use this every day or ever? Definitely not, but when I interview non-uni grads the odds they can write (let alone explain) a modest SQL query are lower. There's very little causation between uni grad and good developer, but IME the best uni grads are better than the best non-uni grads. There's some signal in there.