I am in position where I would be able to pay that amount down (averaged over 10y) with the same QoL; however I do not have a degree and I live in Europe which pays significantly under what the US does.
People keep forgetting that we (and OP) got obscenely lucky in our industry. We are very well compensated compared to our contemporaries; but if anything it's proof that you don't need a degree, and that shouldn't be the litmus for getting a decently paid job.
A degree in of itself should not be held to such vocational standards, it has significant merit but has very little bearing on job performance- We should be working to make college/university affordable because a better educated population helps society.
However, it is far from a great indicator of earning potential.
The largest factors in earning potential remain to be: historical wealth and IQ; degrees, when controlled for familial wealth have shockingly low correlation to lifetime earning potential.
Bully for you! You are an outlier. Your employer may also be an outlier. That's wonderful for you, but it is irresponsible to recommend to any young person that they bet their futures on being able to 1) find 2) when they are hiring 3) and click with the hiring manager an outlier firm like yours.
> it's proof that you don't need a degree.
To do the job, no. To get the job, frequently yes. Obviously a lot of us were shipping production code in high school. Doesn't matter to most employers. For better or worse, having a degree is a required/recommended credential at a lot of jobs. Recruiters will often use it as a filter if they get a ton of resumes. Worse -- not having a degree is also a prohibition to some promotions at some employers so there are potentially follow-on effects of not getting the diploma.
Having been in the industry a while, I can say that the last 10 years or so are aberrant in that recruiters have been less selective than at other times. One definitely didn't want to be in tech in 2001 with no degree and a mortgage.
And speaking of 2001, one of the other benefits of having a degree is you're not as locked into a given career. When the dot.com bust hit tech, I saw folks use the flexibility afforded by their degrees to go into other fields: teaching, law school, etc.
I think you're suffering a bit from sunk cost fallacy and a little bit of "got mine", there's absolutely no reason to continue this.
I (and practically all of my friends) may be outliers, but if nothing else it's proof that you can do highly specialised jobs with vocational education.
As mentioned, higher education has massive value to society, but if it is product that forces you into a considerably unfavourable economic position from the beginning of your career, and certainly not as a gate for establishing yourself to employers -- that it has been used that way does not mean that it's a good idea.
There are many stupid things we do as a society, like changing our clocks backwards and forwards every year; the only reason it continues is inertia and our stubbornness to change.
The data don't bear this out. Over a career, people with college degrees earn more than those without. Until and unless this changes, people are making the right choice going to college.
Caveats: it does need to be more widely communicated that getting into a college that costs $50k/year is a luxury good that not everyone will be able to afford. And the corollary: we need to resume amply funding our public institutions.
So, for instance, how does a tradesman compare? The median income for somebody with a BS, employed full time, is $69k [1]. The median income for a plumber is $60k. [2] That's already pretty close, especially once you factor in 4 years of extra earnings vs 6 figures of debt. The BS may overcome the hole relatively late in their career, but again - it's close. However, there's a big catch: those numbers included STEM degrees. Remove STEM degrees and this isn't even close anymore.
I'm not arguing everybody should be a plumber, or anything of the sort. I am saying that college is a decision that should not be taken lightly, especially if somebody is not going to pursue STEM.
[1] - https://www.bls.gov/emp/chart-unemployment-earnings-educatio...
[2] - https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/plumbers...
