University degrees are, fundamentally, a mark of status and patience: “this guy had enough money and willpower to sit through years of drudgery, so it’s safe to hire him to do the same for us”. After a few years nobody cares what the degree was actually about, particularly in IT where everything gets redone every few years.
>Only hire computer scientists
>I don't have relevant work experience (which means taking a 60k/yr web dev job to begin my career?)
>My projects are good, but I need to contribute to open source projects.
The reason for the degree is to get access to high quality programming jobs rather than 60k/yr web dev. Not to mention, I imagine I'll learn everything about security and algorithms which I'm sure are weaknesses.
As for the first, you don't want to be in an environment that values credentials so strictly, imho - it poisons the air. There is always a chance they would then say "we only hire CS from Stanford/MIT" - sometimes stuff like this is just a polite way of saying "we don't think you can cut it".
> I imagine I'll learn everything about security and algorithms
Algos yeah, plenty - and I agree it's where universities really make a difference (I'm weak there too, and part of the reason for dropping out, and more recently changing career, was that I'm not really interested in that part of the job).
Security... eh. It really depends on the program.
My work experience has been design Engineering, which is a low 6 figure job. I also live in an area with an old industry that's getting Engineers outsourced.
I'm considering a comp sci degree so I can get into embedded, or electrical engineering, AI, or pretty much any 180k/yr job. I'm okay with taking a pay cut for a few years.