I know HN has a thing against college education, but I sincerely believe that neither major relevant information nor a piece of paper certifying that were the most valuable things I got from my time in college.
Peer interaction and exposure, exposure to ideas and studies outside of my apparent interests, practice with long-term commitment and responsibility, etc. These are all things that you can certainly, perhaps even easily, have without going to college... but a college education serves as a certification of these things as well.
The "relevant coursework" part of a college degree is not of particular interest to me (I saw complete idiots get the same degree as I did, and I know many people without relevant degrees that know as much as I). Given two candidates of equal knowledge, one with no degree and one with a degree in art history, I would hire the art history guy with little hesitation.
A college education doesn't serve as a certification of exposure to new ideas and studies or long-term commitment and responsibility. No, one example of long-term commitment and responsibility is taking the route less traveled, knowing all the while that you are succeeding, while others laugh at your seemingly obvious missteps.
Tell me, how would you evaluate a person that skated through HS with Cs and Ds; duplicated the same effort in community college for one and a half years before dropping out; and then showed up at your company looking for a job? You'd probably show him or her the door, when you should have asked what was done in lieu of grinding through school. Then maybe you would find the person with a certified thirst for new ideas and studies who has more dedication and commitment than any college graduate, but feels that the education system is slow, broken, and nonqualitative.
Allow me to brush this chip off my shoulder. Don't get me wrong, I understand where you are coming from as well, and I love the entire school experience. But UW is taking the right step forward for people whom deplore the superfluous evaluations such as attendance and homework, to name a few.
UW can consider me one of their first customers.
The non-college acquisition is likely to be part of a wider more connected level of knowledge too as that knowledge - that matches the college acquired knowledge - is a snapshot, the college educated person is more likely to be limited by the boundaries of the course material.
In order to acquire such knowledge in the field the non-college applicant is likely to have needed just the same interpersonal skills and a whole heap of drive and enthusiasm for their subject matter. On top of that they, presumably, have proven ability in their field if someone has been paying them a living whilst they've been applying this knowledge.
>Given two candidates of equal knowledge, one with no degree and one with a degree in art history, I would hire the art history guy with little hesitation. //
Art History is awesome; a single term of that at undergrad level enriched my life considerably. That aside the guy with art history and (presumably) programming knowledge is likely to have a useful diversity of approach.
I think I'd have a greater expectation that the subset {k} of the candidates domain knowledge implies a larger superset {K} for the non-college candidate.
[disclosure: I'm uni educated and don't work as a programmer]
I don't think you can say one is better than other. You will find great and not so great people in both groups. As always, you need to evaluate the individual, not the piece of paper.
I do think that they are certainly different though. It should not be the same piece of paper because both routes, regardless of relative merits, are very different animals.