I can appreciate some of the other replies here. I didn't finish school and I disagree with respondents to this poll (at least from the perspective of a SWE).

I can appreciate some of the other replies here. I didn't finish school and I disagree with respondents to this poll (at least from the perspective of a SWE). In my experience if you want to work in the kind of software fields and companies that enable you to retire then you should go to school. These places often gate your acceptance behind algorithm problems. Those problems you will only know the tricks to solving if you have a decent background in math, unless you want to spend a lot of time memorizing answers. A lot of SWEs have a pretty intuitive understanding of math that they don't even realize when compared to average people. This was something I noticed immediately about myself when working with degreed peers. That's to say, I spent a lot of time early in my career reading books on math primers and algorithms. I understand people who have degrees do this at times as well, but believe me when I say my primer and your primer were different in their thickness. What I wish is that software application (as opposed to theory) were taught in more in the way that we teach and level up trades. You could even split this out among some high level fields. On top of that, I'd really enjoy watching us ditch LeetCode interviews and base them on this certification and work history. I think we'd retain people in software longer, it'd counter ageism, and it'd attract a lot more diverse talent. Tertiary to that, college is an experience. It's where a lot of people grow up, make mistakes, learn to grow quite a bit, etc... not that it's entirely worth the price of admission, but it is an important place for young people imo.