I think it depends a lot on where you are in the world. In my country where access to education is paid for by the government, and the state pays you $850 a month to study for 5 years once reach educations beyond “High School”, work places kind of expect you to have a degree. You can’t even really be a sales person at a supermarket if you haven’t spent a few years getting a degree, or are under the age of 18 (less pay). Crafty professions takes you through a mix of bookish education and apprenticeship for 4 years, but they too lead to a degree.
Programming is one of the few fields, that isn’t packing boxes of frozen fish, where a career without a degree is possible here, and even on that field time is running out for people without degrees because so many young people have been getting them for the past decade.
But that is my country, here you’d be absolutely crazy (or perhaps challenged in some way) to not finish an education.
I’m from there and I never finished my degree. The reason was that I took some time off to travel, found a job during this time and I simply have not been back since. Almost a decade now.
Only recently have I looked into finishing it off through online courses but even then it is hard to motivate myself, not once have I been asked for it. I even ask recruiters and they also say I don’t need it to be hired (at least: Singapore, UK, Thailand, Sweden) and I’m talking about major companies. I can’t speak for countries other than where I am employed but here I am not underpaid due to lack of degree.
I did go through 3 years of university and I do agree that the experience itself is useful (even though it might seem otherwise at times).
(Edit: to be clear I’m working in software development)
Programming is one of the few fields, that isn’t packing boxes of frozen fish, where a career without a degree is possible here, and even on that field time is running out for people without degrees because so many young people have been getting them for the past decade.
But that is my country, here you’d be absolutely crazy (or perhaps challenged in some way) to not finish an education.