I know that schools are essential in building foundation, I should have specified in the original post that instead of university I would recommend a college that would give him that foundation but allow for him to work on his own or open source projects.
Rather than spending hours each day doing math proofs, he could have the chance to explore different areas in programming while learning figuring out what he enjoys (for example game programming vs web development)
Rather than spending hours each day doing math proofs, he could have the chance to explore different areas in programming while learning figuring out what he enjoys (for example game programming vs web development)