[craig1f]

In general, 4 years of school is worth 4 years of work experience. The problem being that, without 4 years of school, it's hard to convince anyone to hire you and get 4 years of decent work experience.

Additionally, it's harder to get jobs at larger and more bureaucratic companies without a degree. This is because of risk. If I'm a hiring manager, and I hire you, and you do a good job, everything is fine. If I hire you and you're a disaster, there will be a review as to whether there were any red flags during the hiring process that were missed. If "doesn't have a college degree and sufficient work experience" is found, it'll be used to make me look like I was sloppy for hiring you. If no red flags are found, it'll be chalked up to "there were no red flags. This was just bad luck." and everyone moves on. Knowing this, I probably won't hire you even if I think you're a good risk because it's not worth the risk for me.

Without a college education, you'll need to work for small companies who are willing to take a risk on you. You'll also have to accept really low pay to offset this risk until you've built a decent resume.

All of these things might be better than accumulating student debt. Depends on where you live, what the job market is like, and what connections you have.

[homie]

My 4 year degree sure doesn’t look like 4 years of experience to any HR staff/hiring managers I’ve ever interacted with.