A strong portfolio is far better than a degree most of the time. That said, IMO a recent high school graduate would have a much harder time proving that their

A strong portfolio is far better than a degree most of the time. That said, IMO a recent high school graduate would have a much harder time proving that their portfolio is strong and that they are worth the risk over a college new grad. There are some high schools in the US (probably other places too) though that have specific programs where their students are coming out highly trained and with solid skills. My son is coming out of one next year, and while he is planning to go to college as it stands right now, he is employable today. I have used him as a junior developer on a few of our consulting projects in the past couple of years as he can produce and do the basics. I am also potentially going to hire 1 or 2 of his classmates as interns over the summer because we have some temporary needs for basic HTML/CSS skills and to your point they get to build a portfolio on real projects and products.