>I anticipate being able to acquire a moderately well-paying ($60,000 to $80,000+) development job after leaving high school. I think you need to be more reali

>I anticipate being able to acquire a moderately well-paying ($60,000 to $80,000+) development job after leaving high school. I think you need to be more realistic about your expectations. If you have no prior work experience you'll have a hard time finding someone to take a chance on you much less pay you 6k a month. Statistically speaking highschool graduates earn less on average than those with bachelors or associates. If you don't have a bachelors you will need at least fours years of full time experience as a front-end dev to compensate. My first job after I earned my bachelors was as a front end developer and I was only making 4k a month (in Minnesota circa 2012) however it took me 8 months of searching (i think i cold called/submitted resumes to 50+ companies) and enlisting the help of two separate creative recruiting agencies as well as other individual recruiters who contacted me through sites like monster etc. It took that many people to help me find a job even when I had a 4 year degree from a school with a name that carried weight in the local community. I tested the waters in SF as well by sending resumes to a few startups and I got a call one day from a recruiter. He went on to tell me that he really liked my design work and that I had a good eye for it but unfortunately my resume was simply too lacking in experience and no one was going to even consider me without 2-3 years of full time experience. He was really cool about it, taking the time out of his day to help me level me expectations as well as giving me some advice. My suggestion would be to pursue a degree, even if it's just an associates. It would really be a shame to be denied a promotion so late in your career because you don't have a degree.