These are all excellent reasons.

People that want to follow in your footsteps should also think about why they want to do it and to only do something like this if it makes sense for them.

My brother in law did a degree at WGU too, but not in CS. It was to finally get the job he wanted and had always been qualified for but was unavailable without the degree. And yes, he made up the cost in less than 6 months of his new job. It was 100% worth it.

Thanks for writing this is up!

I've been thinking about enrolling at WGU for their CS degree and was just chatting about it yesterday.

I'm also self taught but with only half a degree completed. I think about moving abroad especially for retirement reasons. Having that paper makes all the difference. Without it it's much harder to live anywhere outside a home country permanently.

The older I get, the more I worry about ageism, and whether the absence of a degree might make that worse.

Degrees certify habitus.