This is a tricky issue to my eyes.
Academia is such a rancid, inhuman atmosphere that I could never with a clean conscience recommend that anyone spend four years (or more!) getting mangled there. OTOH, the corporate personnel departments have made a degree a requirement for anything but grunt work or the lowest level supervisory positions, so if you expect to get a "decent" job I could never with a clean conscience recommend that anyone not go to college.
(Interestingly, prior to "human resource" departments, that is, mostly, prior to WWII, corporate management generally looked for people who had proved themselves on the job to advance within the ranks. Now, the stats for middle or upper management with no degree are vanishingly small.)
Of course, without a degree, nothing at all stops you for starting your own company and getting rich that way. There are more CEO's without college degrees than there are middle managers! (Although even that number is almost vanishingly small...)
Mark W.
Absolutely correct. I took my University degree and split. I needed the credentials to take the job I desired. While on that job I had an opportunity to get my Masters for free. My employers were prepared to pay for every last thing - and give me time off from work.
I was so disgusted by the rot, insanity, stupidity, venality, prejudice, and antiCatholic bigotry etc that I had previously endured in University that I said "no thanks."