This is the most honest comparison I've read so far. I dropped out of high school because I was making good money by 18... kept working, saw my own limitations

This is the most honest comparison I've read so far. I dropped out of high school because I was making good money by 18... kept working, saw my own limitations, and did a BS degree in 3 years, graduating at 26. That was 5 years ago today, actually :) I see this same distinction in practice, thanks Triplebyte for quantifying it. If I were staffing an engineering team, I'd absolutely take junior engineers from bootcamps and senior engineers with university backgrounds. I like the surgical model from The Mythical Man Month, and have seen elements of it working by hiring junior test engineers of varying technical backgrounds and training them. I think a BS degree in CS makes a lot more sense when you're hitting the edge of your capability as an independent contributor--many may never need it, some will love going on a few year sabbatical and earning their 'piece of paper' (as I did). Biggest factor that gave me an edge was I had lots and lots of context for all the content of classes, and I took notes every single day, Beginner's Mind style and didn't try to test past intro classes... even CS 101 with Scheme. I was also able to work on my mentoring/leadership skills with classmates.