On 5/27/2018 at 4:55 PM, Halpmelurngewd said:
Go to college.... So you can pay for it the rest of your life.
That shouldn't be true if you're shopping around and making informed decisions.The cost varies by location, but shouldn't be a debt you carry for life. Assuming you're in the US, here's a quick little table you can check for the average cost by state. And since it is the average, you can find cheaper than the average. A quick web search shows there are about 6000 colleges and universities in the country to choose from and about 3500 have computer science degrees.
Assuming you qualify for local state-sponsored schools, you should be able to get your first two years at a community college for around $6000 total, and your bachelors degree for around $16,000 on average. Less if you shop around. That's about $22,000 for four years. If you can't offset that with a part-time job and/or scholarships (I highly recommend both) then you'll need to get that on a student loan. Assuming you can maintain your employment once you're done, you should be able to repay that in 5-10 years, possibly less.
While some companies place some stock on which schools you attended, in practice it doesn't particularly matter nearly as much as the fact that you've got the degree.
I'll assume you've tried everything possible for scholarships and grants. They are effectively free money to students and many great scholarships have no applicants each year, sitting idly by waiting for somebody to submit an application. You should search for new scholarships every semester since many open up after a student drops out or fails to maintain minimum standards.
The cheaper school may not be the popular schools nor the big-name schools, but they still have a valid degree and give you the opportunity to learn, study, and master all the topics you need. Assuming you finish your academic program and work as a software engineer, the university studies should pay for themselves within the first year of real-world employment.