Formal education is a great tool, however the organisation that delivers it is irrelevant.

Brilliant people are brilliant. They're the people you want to hire. And those people will be learning from everything, not just their Ivy League school.

IMO large amounts of students topping IT classes at these schools are doing majority of the learning on their own at a faster pace.

I would recommend Native Instruments Traktor.

The S2 or S4 are both great controllers at entry level price. They aren't standalone, so you will also need a Laptop.

Numark mixers are OK, however the cheaper entry level mixers are basically midi controllers and do not include a headphone output for queing songs.

Vinyl is great, but also quite expensive and hard to learn. Best to learn on a digital system first.