Current level: 2 yr in CS/Psych Equiv no Certificate (Dropped out of a 4yr program)
In general, I've found that a degree is a nice thing to have but not necessary. I currently work at a high level in a technological sector. The money isn't stellar but it's more than most so I don't really think too much about things like transition costs outside of making sure to transfer the funds over each paycheck. I've also found that, now that the whole transition bit is out of the way, going back to school and finishing up seems a bit more important because I really know what I want now and part of that is to advance my career to a more academic point rather than industry.
As far as the higher levels of education on the net: please see livejournal/myspace... that'll cure that theory fast.
To the thing about degree meaning success: I do and don't agree. Without a degree, you indeed can become very successful, however, the few who do make it out of the non-degree world into something akin to commonly understood success also typically had one thing in common: the relentless drive to learn and improve. Both Branson and Gates were and are know-a-holics who, from all reports tend to pick up new interests about as often as most of us eat. That goes for anyone who is generally successful. They have a serious drive to be who and what they want to be and continuously refine that through learning and trying out new things. This is not limited to simply knowing things but can also be true for any course of intense study from art to sports. The focus and discipline that are required to maintain top-level performance in any area is something that comes from the start or something that was strived for from within later in life (I'm trying desperately to kick start that again. Things got muddied when I got depressed for years over... something.) This is more of a parental (nurture) thing, in my opinion, for more people than not in the world. Granted, there are certainly schools in the world that instill that kind of rigor in it's students by the nature of their training, but those do tend to be the schools for the upper-echelon of the tax-bracket system.
I'll make the blanket disclaimer that this is not always true, as in all things. You do have the schemer types who more or less bumble into wealth and prosperity (I have worked for some.) They find monetary success but they're always hungry for something. Perhaps because they're not at peace with themselves. There are those who achieve success through the complete lack of ambition (Buddhists) There are also those who have a paid-for because they won the lottery, got talented for acting/pop group, or wrote a book about something useless but otherwise fascinatingly catchy in the context of the current zeitgeist (pop-psych books tend to be my targets here... that or pundits.) Again, however, many of these people tend to be relatively unhappy because of the lack of that sense of self that comes from being your own person completely, from what it seems.
Or I could be entirely off base. Just my two cents.
-tori
