I don't want to discourage students from going to college. However my intent in what I am about to link and write is to encourage students to understand that time is time - it moves forward - and one should always make the most of the time you have.
The hard analysis is that we can't rely on college to make up for the opportunities we miss teaching today.
The longer the time you put into something the more practiced you can be at it. So while I value the late bloomer and otherwise disadvantaged as deeply as anyone else - I worry we can easily create a system where we waste great opportunity in the name 'we can fix that later'.
Ask any system administrator: 'I'll do it later' often means it won't get done and very few can afford to remain in college for very long periods of time.
FRC is huge. It gives awards for so many diverse things. We should be able to find a way to balance an award or reward for those that manage to teach the fundamental skills in: engineering and fabrication (we already do for programming we somewhat do for engineering) and can show that and the value it returns on an FRC field. If we can manage this then it doesn't matter what COTS stuff is in the community. In parallel we are helping those that are at a disadvantage by letting them challenge those who are not disadvantaged with what the community can cook up in the form of COTS.