I saw a developer position recently that required at least a four-year degree and it genuinely surprised me because of how infrequent that requirement appears on developer job postings. The vast majority of posts I see are "four years degree or equivalent experience"
I've worked in software shops before where less than half of the staff had a 4-year degree completed—but it is noteworthy y that everyone had at least some college.
>and my own employer when applying for advancement
That I have seen before, but in higher-ed, where it is kind of a given as it is sort of an eating-your-own-dog-food requirement. If your top employees don't have a degree, and you sell degrees, it can tarnish your appearance.
The government is heavily involved in the student loan industry. Consequently, the entire market is heavily distorted. One of the largest programs is the Direct/Stafford loan program [0]. Essentially the student (and only the student; no cosigners allowed) directly borrows money from the federal government at a fairly cheap interest rate (in the last decade [1], it has ranged from 3.4% to 5.05%). In some cases, the student is not liable for interest accrued while they're in school (see the following paragraph for details if you're interested). The loan limit is $31k for dependent students and $57.5k for independent students.
There's two variants to direct loans: subsidized (where the government pays for the interest while the student is in school) and unsubsidized (no qualification necessary). Anyone can take out unsubsidized loans, limited to the COA (cost of attendance: the amount a college declares it would cost to attend; inclusive of tuition, fees, books, room & board, etc.). Anyone who's EFC (expected family contribution: the amount the government expects the student/their parents to pay annually based upon their income and assets) is less than COA can take out up to the shortfall in subsidized loans (but no more than the specified limit which varies by dependent-status and year in school).
[0]: https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/loans/subsidized...
[1]: https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/loans/interest-r...
People on here earn top percentile salaries which warp the calculus, myself included, but $50K is approximately one year of the UK median income (I imagine the US figure is similar).
I'd be worried about making back hundreds of thousands in a low paid field. But a 50K degree in a well paid field is a no brainer to me.
Earnings increases are cumulative. I'm almost certainly 200% over what I'd have without my undergrad, and not just due to the piece of paper.
Like, flubbing a single negotiation on any job could have a higher impact than that over the rest of your career.
Most major, publicly-traded, corporations want a degree beyond entry-level positions. Some companies won't even touch you without a degree (including many startups): for example, Flexport turned me down for the job I'd already done for over a decade, longer than they've been a company, for not having a 4-year degree, this is a direct copy-paste from the rejection email when I applied:
>You obviously have many of the skills we're looking for. However, for the Customs Brokerage role we require a BA/BS degree as well as previous experience in a broker role doing entries and customs classifications.
At the time of that email rejection I'd been doing the job for 12 years and 1 month at my current employer.
Even postings at places like YC have degree requirements for stuff that shouldn't (like assistants).
These are just the example I could remember at the moment, I'm sure there have been more.
I've had gobs and gobs of jobs found via indeed do this to me as part of the 'pre-qualification'. They want to know where you got your degree, sometimes your GPA etc.
There are _so_ many places where a degree is a must that it's better to ask which institution will happily accept you without a degree without complications (besides the obvious Google and Tesla).
But to give you an answer: lots of hospitals, lots of defense contractors. Me, I was hired by a hospital as a researcher, but there were a great many complications about the pay (my boss said he wanted to pay me more but couldn't).
And, suppose you wanted to emigrate somewhere, say Belgium. It turns out it's just easier to do it if you have a degree than not. You encounter these issues in places you'd least expect them. Just for convenience sake I'm considering getting one.
A degree would absolutely, positively, beyond any shadow of a doubt improve my chances of increasing my income. At my current job only about 7%.
But the tens of thousands of dollars of debt I'd have to take on to get that degree at 4.5-7% interest (or higher)... yeah thanks but no thanks.
So, anecdotally at least, I can agree that there are pretty diminishing returns to getting a degree. While I'd be all but guaranteed to increase my income, I'd be paying out more though:
a 20k 10-year loan at 6.8% (finaid.org suggested this %) interest means I'm paying 27,619.31
a 40k 10-year loan at 6.8% interest means I'm paying 55,238.63
At my current income the 20k loan, bumping up one position and considering our raises inside a position are limited to less than 3.5% annually based on a rather arbitrary 'merit review'. It would be 7-10 years of my increased pay just to cover the loan, assuming no taxes were taken on the increase but also factoring in insurance increases. That means in 14 years I could start keeping more money from that 4 year degree if I could manage a 20k$ degree.
Ha!