As so many programming positions pay 3x that amount in a year - and more, over a course of a career, I would say yes. You will earn it back in four months of w

As so many programming positions pay 3x that amount in a year - and more, over a course of a career, I would say yes. You will earn it back in four months of working. Also people talk about the downturn in tech around 2000-2001 - I was working then, and startups and dot-coms were going broke left and right. I interviewed at traditional companies - some required a degree, and if they did not they at least asked about it. It doesn't matter when times are good, but when the economy goes south, and, let's say, you're 50 years old with two kids and you're laid off - then it matters. And by that point it is harder to jump into, then when you're in your late teens or twenties (and has less lifetime return). I'm not really sure what "self taught" means. You are supposed to spend at least three hours studying for every hour in class. So in that sense, it is only a question if you go to college and are 75% self-taught, or don't go and are 100% self taught. With those being the hours spent, you are only going to class for one year any how, and studying for the other three years. I don't know why the blog post focuses so much on the first paycheck. Your pay will go up over the years. Even beginner programmers get paid decently for a new graduate. In terms of understanding things like mu-recursive functions as a model of computation, mathematical ideas - so that the idea to use a Goedel number or exponential decay might occur to you - these things you are much more likely to find in a CS grad then one who is not. A CS grad might not know these things, but a non-CS non-grad is even less likely to know them. Also - a beginner might not know what they should learn. Most beginners want to start by knowing which computer language to learn. Lots of CS programs start off teaching calculus, discrete math, graph theory, theory of computation, and then you start with learning a programming language in a introductory course to algorithms and data structures. It's not just not knowing something - it's not knowing what you should know. I spent more time than I thought I would studying critical sections in class at college. Otherwise I may have thought it was something I could understand in a day or two, which it is not. Also, it speaks of different circumstances. But one does not have to shell out all the money up front. If needed, you can find work, preferably in technology, find a good public school nearby and take one or two courses at night (or on weekends) every semester. Skill in knowing the ins-and-outs of the latest Javascript framework is ephemeral. I have years of Solaris knowledge and experience, much of which is useless unless by chance someone has an old Solaris server around they need to find the LUN numbers from. But knowing the fundamentals is useful for a long time. And the earlier in your career you learn them, the better.