[barik]

This is hugely important, and seems to have been glossed over. "attending college" != "graduating from college". College is, for better or worse, a binary signal. You either graduated or you didn't.

When you apply for an Engineering license, the Engineering board doesn't care that you completed 100% of your Engineering courses but never received a degree because you forgot to take History 101.

Because of this, it's even worse in that it's a sunk cost. Better to go ahead and drop out earlier rather than later, because not only will you not have a degree, you'll have wasted that many years for no measurable improvement in hiring potential.

[WalterBright]

You won't have wasted "that many years" if you took courses that taught you something useful, even if you did not graduate.