[typicaljoe]

Being degree free myself (and knowing others in the same boat) let me put it this way: with four years of school you may be able to start at $50K a year. With a good head and practice you may be able to get a job at 20 for $50K. With 6 years of school you may be able to start at $60-80. Again, with practice, a good head, and a good company you can be in that range by the time the schooled person is ready for the work force and you don't have the debt.

By and large programmers solve problems. If you can solve problems well enough they'll pay you. They may pay you more when they see that magical degree on your resume, but that doesn't mean you can solve their problem any better than the person without a degree. Likewise if by the time you are 30-35 you can be at or near 6 figures the actual pay difference you could earn matters less and less.

There is a lot of value in a formal education in computer science or software engineering. So much so that I am tempted to go and attempt to get a degree in one or the other. But it isn't so I can work in the field. There are so many lazy people that if you just show up and dig ditches you'll find work and become important to the company. If you think a degree (or even the ability to do things text-book right) means anything to a firm that just needs an apt to store customer contacts than you are fooling yourself. I doubt I could ever work at Google, but I really don't care that much about missing out on that rat race.