You only hire people with degrees? I couldn't afford a degree, that's why I never got one, but have tons of experience. You still wouldn't consider hiring someone like me? Why?
This just seems like you're limiting yourself from hiring people that couldn't afford college, but that are still extraordinarily valuable to your company. Which is just wrong.
I don't know what country you are in, but in the US, they will extend all kinds of loans to you. (That really is the problem). In fact, the less money you have, the better the deal for the loans. At some point in college my girlfriend and I wished our parents had less money because it would have made our cost (which we were paying) so much lower.
Do 1-2 years at a community college, 1-2 at a state college, and you have a 4 year degree at a reasonable price.
I got a merit scholarship, that lowered prices for me quite a bit. Others have noted that although advertised tuition has gone up, the average price paid by students hasn't changed nearly as fast. I.e. the rich people are paying sticker price and the poor are getting subsidized 'need' based loans. The only people getting screwed are those in the middle.
I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people in that situation. Me included.
I bought myself a home when I was 24, so finishing up college wasn't reasonable for me. Instead, I started working on my own projects as well as learning as much as possible to do the job of me and the developers above me. I've learned a lot in those 4 years (and and continuing to do so). So much so, that thinking about going to college gives me mixed feelings.
Its either...
1) Should I spend X amount of money to re-learn the stuff I've learned just to get a small increase in pay, so I can pay off those college bills that I've accumulated from the year and a half training?
2) Should I work on this project (the Bachelor's Degree) instead of finishing up my personal project (that's potentially a great startup idea)?
3) Is and extra $5-10k a year "guaranteed" now better than an extra $500k-10 mil a year "probable"?
I don't know. Perhaps, I can compromise a little. Finish up slowly and have my cake and eat it to. All I know is, with my personal project, I have an opportunity to do something great. In the meantime, I have a good job and am earning a very good paycheck (well as far as the rest on the US is concerned).
I feel that I can always go back to school and finish up. In the meantime, I will continue to learn things on my own through my projects and my day job.
I couldn't get a degree because no school would accept me into their programs to begin with. I haven't found it ever to be an issue in the real world though. Companies often come to me these days.
The good news is that you only need one job. For every company that requires a degree, there is one that values the self-learner even more. There is no use in fretting over individual company hiring practices.
What's your judgement of something 'working'? Maybe many companies are failing because their hiring is limited to a specific academic category. Whilst startups with much less budget surpass them, because they're not limited to anything.
Your company: only academia
Startups: academia + anybody else
With that in mind, it's just plain math that startups have more chance in finding great people.
This just seems like you're limiting yourself from hiring people that couldn't afford college, but that are still extraordinarily valuable to your company. Which is just wrong.