Degrees can be overrated. I've worked with somebody about that age who also doesn't have a degree, and who also started working at AT&T. He worked his way up

Degrees can be overrated. I've worked with somebody about that age who also doesn't have a degree, and who also started working at AT&T. He worked his way up to programming, & he learned UNIX systems programming and networking fairly early on. He leveraged that into several jobs with tech companies, and is a principal engineer at one right now. He speaks at conferences and has many academic papers and citations, and has made major contributions to his field. (not mentioning his name in case its not common knowledge that he doesn't have a degree).