"I'm also quite worried about the debt load that a degree would require. I anticipate having to take out between $50,000 and $100,000 in loans to finance a degree."
You may want to consider if you can do better than that. My Bachelor's and Master's are from Michigan State University. There is little (though not quite zero) evidence to suggest that there are radically better programs out there, because so much of what you get out of a college depends on you. (I wish I'd done better, I certainly could have done worse. But I can definitely attest that top-tier != awesome skills; I've given interviews that are definite counterexamples.) Double check, because some state university programs do seem to be wastes of time, but by no means all of them.
College is an easy, but expensive, way to acquire certain skills that, yes, will indeed future-proof your career. It is easy in that you will be guided through a useful course of study; it is expensive in that it requires not only some money, but also a lot of time.
One way to resolve the matter is to try your best to work with a counselor to up the quality of what courses you take. While this is poorly advertised, a degree is ultimately a certification from the certifying body that you have completed their minimal course of study. The set of requirements they lay out front is their default answer, but they can give others. While they will probably be inflexible on the number of requisite credit hours, they're often quite flexible in terms of what those credit hours can really be, and in particular they can be quite flexible in terms of substituting harder courses for easier ones. Consider trying to skip over the intro courses, as that will particularly open up the more advanced tier earlier. Much of the real value of a college degree is in the higher level courses; if you can get there faster, go for it.
I'd honestly think about a dozen times about taking on $50,000-$100,000 in debt right now if that's really the only choice you can find, though. That's frankly catastrophic levels of debt at the beginning of a career. One nice thing about the computer career path is that you will be able to handle it, but even so it's a burden, and if you have any sort of life hiccup this level of debt can become a big problem. I'd seriously consider grabbing a job, doing my best to pocket as much cash as possible, and wait for the post-bubble-pop to get your formal education (taking the previous paragraph even more fully to heart at that point). You may also discover that you do indeed have the discipline to pick up the harder stuff on your own. (The touchstone for that, IMHO, is whether you can teach yourself how to build a compiler; if you can do that, you can probably self-educate just fine.) It's hard to be sure when and if the bubble will pop, so it's a risk, but at this point, so is taking on that amount of debt. Alas, there are no non-risk choices.
So, no quick & easy answers. I'd be suspicious of anyone in this thread who offers one. But the question becomes much easier if you can work out a way to take on substantially less debt, though.
Comments
"I'm also quite worried about the debt load that a degree would require. I anticipate having to take out between $50,000 and $100,000 in loans to finance a degree."
You may want to consider if you can do better than that. My Bachelor's and Master's are from Michigan State University. There is little (though not quite zero) evidence to suggest that there are radically better programs out there, because so much of what you get out of a college depends on you. (I wish I'd done better, I certainly could have done worse. But I can definitely attest that top-tier != awesome skills; I've given interviews that are definite counterexamples.) Double check, because some state university programs do seem to be wastes of time, but by no means all of them.
College is an easy, but expensive, way to acquire certain skills that, yes, will indeed future-proof your career. It is easy in that you will be guided through a useful course of study; it is expensive in that it requires not only some money, but also a lot of time.
One way to resolve the matter is to try your best to work with a counselor to up the quality of what courses you take. While this is poorly advertised, a degree is ultimately a certification from the certifying body that you have completed their minimal course of study. The set of requirements they lay out front is their default answer, but they can give others. While they will probably be inflexible on the number of requisite credit hours, they're often quite flexible in terms of what those credit hours can really be, and in particular they can be quite flexible in terms of substituting harder courses for easier ones. Consider trying to skip over the intro courses, as that will particularly open up the more advanced tier earlier. Much of the real value of a college degree is in the higher level courses; if you can get there faster, go for it.
I'd honestly think about a dozen times about taking on $50,000-$100,000 in debt right now if that's really the only choice you can find, though. That's frankly catastrophic levels of debt at the beginning of a career. One nice thing about the computer career path is that you will be able to handle it, but even so it's a burden, and if you have any sort of life hiccup this level of debt can become a big problem. I'd seriously consider grabbing a job, doing my best to pocket as much cash as possible, and wait for the post-bubble-pop to get your formal education (taking the previous paragraph even more fully to heart at that point). You may also discover that you do indeed have the discipline to pick up the harder stuff on your own. (The touchstone for that, IMHO, is whether you can teach yourself how to build a compiler; if you can do that, you can probably self-educate just fine.) It's hard to be sure when and if the bubble will pop, so it's a risk, but at this point, so is taking on that amount of debt. Alas, there are no non-risk choices.
So, no quick & easy answers. I'd be suspicious of anyone in this thread who offers one. But the question becomes much easier if you can work out a way to take on substantially less debt, though.