[jimbokun]

A four year degree at a quality program will open up a lot of jobs that the one year of self learning will not prepare you for.

That's not to say one year of self learning won't prepare you for a lot of programming jobs, or that the person with the four year degree won't be starting at one of those same jobs. But there are a lot of types of software I would only want someone with a real CS degree writing.

(Of course, 1 year of self learning, plus 3 to 4 years of real world coding plus further supplemental self study, could very well get you to the same level as a CS grad's knowledge, or beyond.)