[ktavera]

This is just my personal experience but I was in a similar situation.

I dropped out of high school to do web application development. Tried going to a technical college to get some kind of degree while working full time and I eventually had to choose work or go to school.

I chose to work. I was making $100k+ by the time I was 19 and kept advancing my career steadily. To this day probably 90% of the jobs I've applied to haven't questioned the fact that I do not have a degree, it's all about ability and what I have done. Startups make up that other 10% - even though I now have 10 years (i'm 27) of professional, proven development experience I've experienced a lot of apprehension in interviews because I didn't go to college.

So there is definitely some upside financially, but also you may not be able to land your dream job one day because you lack the college experience.

[bookreader]

I feel like it's a little odd when you say that startups make up the other 10% that care about a degree.

Conventional advice on HN seems to be that startups are the kinds of companies that don't care as much about the degree. What are the other 90% of jobs you've applied to? Are they also at tech companies?

[ktavera]

Typically financial companies or IT consulting firms (IBM, CSC, etc) - the exact type that you would expect would ask you about your education. Sometime last year I interviewed with a startup, they loved my resume. Did a skype interview and things were great. Then they put me on a call with their CTO, first question - "Where did you go to school and when did you graduate?"... He cut the interview short and I never heard back.

[bookreader]

That's interesting. Do you approach these financial companies and consulting firms through a connection, or are you just sending a resume? I'd expect HR at big companies to filter for degrees.