Honors course can be .5 or 1.0 weighted up and AP Courses are 1.0 weighted up. This is standard for most high schools now. So if you get an A in AP World History it is a 5.0. A- in Honors Chemistry it is a 4.2 or something like that. SO if you have a 3.75 GPA.... it might not be as good as one thinks. This is the main reason schools have done away with rankings because a good GPA still can be in top 20% not top 10%. Crazy since we were in high school.
I think what you’re thinking is right, he would learn real-life skills from his travels which a conventional university won’t teach him.
The point about the social aspect of university is a valid one. One of the main attractions of uni in my day was the opportunity to live a freewheeling, bohemian lifestyle at one's parents (or the state's) expense before the years of corporate drudgery. However times have changed. Universities have not escaped the creeping totalitarianism that is engulfing our world. Living on a campus where one had to show one's vaccine passport, wear a mask, socially distance, and be careful about what one says doesn't sound like much fun. It might be better to find a social life off campus and just use the university to learn something useful?