One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of people who leave school 'for a little while' with full intentions of going back can find it difficult to do so and then never go back. When you're in the 'real' world you can start to accumulate commitments and the more of these you have the less compatible college is with your life.
From other comments it sounds like your main motivation is to make yourself more marketable to future employers. CS grads are already highly marketable especially when combined with internships and/or part-time work. It sounds like you already have good experience and presumably you will have more during college with an internship or some such thing. If you complete a degree you'll have the qualifications that hiring managers would look for. Having full-time experience instead of part-time isn't going to give you any added benefit. And it probably won't get you a higher starting salary - you'll be in the same hiring pool with all of the other new grads.
And there are costs to be considered. You'll be delaying your college experience by a year. Your friends will be meeting smart interesting people and going to parties and spending late nights in the lab working on cool projects and learning about things they hadn't even heard of before. You'll have to get up early for work tomorrow. You'll be delaying the start of your career by a year. Your salary can rise pretty quickly in your first five years after school. How fast it goes up will be determined on how you perform on your first job(s) not on some work you did when you were 18. The money you earn next year probably won't make up for delaying that process by a year. Also note that salaries can vary widely by geography and are much higher in the Bay Area, New York, etc. If you want to move to a higher earning location you'll be delaying that by a year.
Comments
One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of people who leave school 'for a little while' with full intentions of going back can find it difficult to do so and then never go back. When you're in the 'real' world you can start to accumulate commitments and the more of these you have the less compatible college is with your life.
From other comments it sounds like your main motivation is to make yourself more marketable to future employers. CS grads are already highly marketable especially when combined with internships and/or part-time work. It sounds like you already have good experience and presumably you will have more during college with an internship or some such thing. If you complete a degree you'll have the qualifications that hiring managers would look for. Having full-time experience instead of part-time isn't going to give you any added benefit. And it probably won't get you a higher starting salary - you'll be in the same hiring pool with all of the other new grads.
And there are costs to be considered. You'll be delaying your college experience by a year. Your friends will be meeting smart interesting people and going to parties and spending late nights in the lab working on cool projects and learning about things they hadn't even heard of before. You'll have to get up early for work tomorrow. You'll be delaying the start of your career by a year. Your salary can rise pretty quickly in your first five years after school. How fast it goes up will be determined on how you perform on your first job(s) not on some work you did when you were 18. The money you earn next year probably won't make up for delaying that process by a year. Also note that salaries can vary widely by geography and are much higher in the Bay Area, New York, etc. If you want to move to a higher earning location you'll be delaying that by a year.