Great read. I'd like to say that I've been okay with my decision to drop out of college. Yet several years later all I've found is that 98% of companies now want a BA just to answer phones. A number of friends that I went to school with cruised their way through with C averages. I would be amazed when they'd ask me to read some of their senior level work and it would have the spelling mistakes of a 2nd grader. They spent most of their time at parties while being supported financially by their parents. Meanwhile I was attending the funeral of mine and facing homelessness, so dropping out was what was right for me at the time.
Now I'm the idiot for not having a degree, while those same guys I knew all have fantastic jobs. I think that many companies just use degree requirements as resume filtering tools and nothing more. It doesn't seem to matter that you can't write or that you learned nothing.
That's harsh, and I hope things work out for you, but there is another thing going on here - a constant treadmill of qualifications is becoming the norm in many industries. You might be doing your career harm if you isolate yourself from the main stream of academic qualifications that makes up that treadmill.
Those friends who cruised through school and have good careers, did they actually stop at a BA? Or do they have, say, accountancy qualifications? Masters degrees gained while working? Memberships of professional institutions, working towards being chartered in their profession?
Obviously I don't know the answer to that, and it varies a lot between industries - many programmers here on HN get by fine with talent and experience, and don't feel pushed to gain extra qualifications. But depending what you do, qualifications can open doors to other qualifications and over a long career it might make quite a bit of difference.
I think if you have aspirations to work in an office job for a traditional company, something beyond a high-school diploma is more or less the price of admission these days. On the other hand I think that we tend to assume that this is what everybody wants, and as a result our public education systems no longer serve well those who are not college-bound.
Now I'm the idiot for not having a degree, while those same guys I knew all have fantastic jobs. I think that many companies just use degree requirements as resume filtering tools and nothing more. It doesn't seem to matter that you can't write or that you learned nothing.