I am a current high school senior who intends to go into the software industry. I'm trying to decide between enrolling in college to pursue a BS in Computer Science or entering directly into the workforce.
My conundrum is this: I intend to seek a front-end engineering job, and am already very competent in front-end technologies. I have a fair number of items on my resume, mostly from personal projects and internships. I anticipate being able to acquire a moderately well-paying ($60,000 to $80,000+) development job after leaving high school. However, I'm also worried that not pursuing a degree will exclude me from certain well-paying jobs, especially later in my career.
I'm also quite worried about the debt load that a degree would require. I anticipate having to take out between $50,000 and $100,000 in loans to finance a degree.
On balance, do you think pursuing a degree will be more lucrative in the long run?
Yes yes yes yes yes.
"Front-end engineering" is a craft that happens to be relevant right now. It's an artifact of the particular client-server computing model we currently have. It is not likely to be relevant 5-10-20 years from now.
"Computer Science" is (among other things) a discipline that will give you the ability to learn the next craft, and the next one after that. It will keep you relevant your whole career.
Definitely go to college if you have the opportunity to do so.