In a lot of fields that's changing, but not in nearly as many fields as it should be. Outside of academic fields a training program could provide just as much, if not more knowledge needed for a specific career as a college. Especially with college requirements including a lot of things not necessary for the specific degree being sought.

Obviously there's many exceptions. I don't want a doctor that just took a training course, but my doctor not taking american history or calculus? Not a deal breaker at all.

Speaking from experience... Degrees are not at all required in software engineering. Passion & skill are sought after in early career developers, and years of experience will suffice in more advanced engineers.

I'd say degrees from prestigious universities can still help you even in software engineering, even after experience should take precedence.

My sense is that's mainly true at companies where the founders/execs have prestigious degrees, and therefore put a lot of stock in them.

I think it's (unfortunately) quite helpful to these companies too, since appearances matter a lot. Telling a non-technical investor, prospect, or journalist "all our engineers are from Stanford/MIT/etc." will often impress them regardless of whether any of those engineers have a clue (something a non-technical person has no way to really evaluate).

But unless it's a household name university, I think you're right that it no longer matters at all.

It's also worth noting that someone who graduated from Stanford/MIT/etc has a lot of good options, and it's a huge vote of confidence that they chose to work for your startup

This just isn't true at all. After my second job I stopped even listing college on my resume and my first two jobs didn't care that I never graduated. I'm sure it depends on the industry but in tech the companies that are worth working for care about what you can do, not where you went to school or if you graduated.

I don't know how or why but nobody ever asked me once, they just sort of assumed. I'm guessing this isn't the common experience.

this is kind of a tangent, but you know what makes work really interesting, desirable, and rewarding? it's not anything about the work itself, it's that it actually, truly needs doing.