In the modern economy an academic degree is becoming less and less important, as employers know they teach nonsense at institutions and graduates aren't very qualified. As long as you know what you are doing you can easily get a job. I wouldn't send a kid to college unless he/she wanted to become an engineer/doctor/scientist or other STEM related field. If he she wanted a career in the computer science field I would tell them to skip college and learn on their own if they had aptitude.