College is great, you don't have to go to one that costs $120,000...

I worked and had a family while I got my CHEE, incurred some debt which I paid off relatively quickly.  I went to a City University, but a good one.  

College teaches people how to research and learn on their own, and how to use past examples and designs to build new things.  The specific facts I learned in college are rarely used 20 years later, but my ability to comprehend and learn complex things...to communicate with words and pictures is invaluable.  

A degree helps in the job market, you get onto lists that folks without a degree can't get on.  Hiring is often a process of elimination.  Whether you go to college or not you are going to have a boss, and you are just a resource.  You can work in a sweatshop or a velvet sweatshop, and a very small percentage will make it to the very upper echelons.  However, I don't want to be there with those people.  Early bird catches worm, for the worm farmer.