Being at university helps but accessing those resources doesn’t necessarily require attending, which is out of reach for many people for many different reasons. When I was in high school I emailed a few professors at my local university (Caltech/MIT/Ivy league tier) and they allowed me to audit graduate level classes, participate in labs and group projects, and sponsored visiting faculty status so I could officially borrow books and lab equipment. Maybe this doesn’t scale if everyone starts pestering professors at research universities, but everyone I’ve met in academia has been extremely receptive to helping autodidacts access university resources without attending. At the coal face of a university, everyone is still dedicated to education afterall.