Well I tried this approach with my IT career. I avoided the high cost college fees by relying on commercial programming courses and my work experience (started

Well I tried this approach with my IT career. I avoided the high cost college fees by relying on commercial programming courses and my work experience (started on help desks and now I'm an independant software development consultant). I also avoided big student loans (though I did end up with about 10k owing) and basically continued to work part time or fulltime since high school graduation. So I did pretty much exactly what you suggested but heres my problem. I wonder about the path I didn't take and the kind of interesting work I could be having now if i paid the money and went to a top tier CS college. What kind of interesting research work or product development work could I be doing now, if I had invested in a first class education? Don't get me wrong, I'm not doing badly...but I wonder about the jobs I have the talent for and interest in but not the educational background...many doors are shut to me now because of a decision I made to forego college 15 years ago.