[IgorP]

A couple more comments for if you decide that college is for you and you want to save some money:

Fill out the FAFSA form; There is a lot of Grant money available that people do not know about. You may end up getting part or all of your tuition paid for.

Consider attending a community college for the first two years instead of going to a 4 year college.

[jdelgado]

Absolutely something I plan on doing, thank you.

[IgorP]

Just one more comment:

As I am studying computers/programming now, I find myself at a disadvantage over things that are probably trivial to others. I find myself not knowing the basic of things, for example. The stack? The heap? Turing Complete? With all of this stuff that is second nature to others, I had to learn about it from scratch by Google, etc.

I don't know if that was the most efficient usage of my time . So, in a way, I feel that I have missed out on a lot of basics that many take for granted by not having majored in Computer Science and have had to take the "long road" to understanding.

If you can avoid taking the "long road", you might instead have more time to spend on learning far more interesting things.

[jdelgado]

I absolutely agree, there is a learning curve with anything IT related. There is always a best-practice scenario and another twenty ways to handle the situation.

At the same time, I have had professors that have told me blatantly incorrect things. I learn way better from experience and actually watching things fail, as do most people I would assume.

Good point, however. I think college education will always be a toss-up.