It worked out OK for both Gate$ and Rush, among others....
I am very good friends, for more than 25 years, with a man who is brilliant enough to have held some high-paying jobs in the six figure range over the years, in extremely high-tech industries involving aviation as well as nuclear energy.
His formal education ends at his high school diploma. He never went to college. Companies that won't hire him because of his lack of college degree, lose out to the smarter companies that hire him; they understand the inflated "value" of college diplomas and the real value of actual accomplishments.
Steve Jobs-founder of Apple, Larry Ellison-founder of Oracle and the list goes on and on and on...