Just my two cents: it's entirely possible to get a great education essentially for free given the amount of information that's available on the internet. this is especially true for things like programming and art. i have friends who made more money programming straight out of high school than people who went to college, studied hard, and graduated with a good amount of debt but without any solid skills.
i work with tons of programmers who didn't get college educations but there are a few details your not doing justice.
- they don't make more straight out of high school than someone straight out of college. first programming jobs with no experience are hard to get. you could get involved in open source projects and then use that to jump to a real job, but if negotiating skills are equal, i'd bet the college grad would still get a larger salary.
- everyone i know who's gone the no degree route regrets it on some levels and most go back to school. out of all the guys i've known only two have no interest in going back to get their degree. all the rest have gone back or are currently going back.
- out sourced labor generally goes to programmers from poorer countrys where they take fast track approaches to programming. out sourcing didn't work. it only works when you have a domestic resource to act as architect and team lead and this is because eventhough they've mastered syntax, not having the heavy math and science load results in programmers who don't have as good problem sovling skills and who aren't as good with things like abstraction. also, outsourced labor gets about 1/5 the wage of a domestic resource.
- college teaches you how to learn things really quickly. i can pick up a new technology and run with it really quickly and the reason is because of college. eventhough you learn things that don't relate to your eventaul career path, you still learn how to learn things really fast and it's a life skill that is very useful in programming.
- probably 50% of the jobs require degrees. a lot don't but a lot also do. i'd also assume that this precentage goes up significantly if you decide to go into management. you might work up in your current company and then it gets brought out and the new company comes in and lays off all the managers (happens all the time). well now you have to find another job but if your a manager, i'd guess this would be hard to do with out a BS as most manager jobs would require one. sure you can go back to programming but after taking a huge pay cut. if your in management, you're probably married with a mortage and kids and back sliding would probably suck.
and really, are people really ready to go striaght to working corporate jobs right out of high school? seems lame to me. it'd be like going straight from jr. high to a corporate job if you could. who'd really want to. and i'm not sure that i'd want to work with kids striaght out of high school. they'd have to get paid way less, there's just no other reason that you'd be open to it as a team lead or manager other than "well he's cheap." If you could have a rice graduate for the same cash, rice would win every time. there's just no contest.