Not sure what makes a good survival course vs. learning on one's own. Surely there's some value in acquiring local knowledge of the flora, fauna, geography and perhaps meteorology if one is to go out "exploring". I can also see some value in learning local laws and regs, and for a few of us a table of local repeater frequencies would be useful. Other than that, learning basic wilderness survival skills isn't too hard to do on one's own, as the compendium of material from which to study is vast, and I've never had a problem making up cotton ball tinders once I learnt how much salve to put on one so's it would take a spark and ignite, and trying various methods under moderate to extreme conditions in the backyard before attempting to test same in wilderness setting. But I suppose that doesn't really answer the question.

To me it seems that a school/course worth it's salt will take you to places where folks have actually had to get in the sh!t and get out. This can be simulated, but the program won't be worth much if it isn't a proper mock up. SHTF school is a good example of how students are put into the real world model and shown how people actually survived the situation. If I were going to spend any more money on training, I'd be looking for a course like that set up in a given context. For them, it was literally a war zone.

Otherwise, it was easy enough figuring out most of the skills on my own, or with minimal instruction from others who'd figured it out. The rest was just learning gear selection and use, and then doing it. Not a great deal of difference between spending the night in a plastic bag in the back yard in the middle of November vs. up at elk camp, except that I can make adjustments as I go in the backyard as needed to figure out what will work and what is a waste of time, but we call that modeling the theory.