I have no idea why people still make this mistake.  Clearly, way too many &quot;adults&quot; are telling high school kids that &quot;college is the answer!&quot; without providing more detail.<p>It&#x27;s more like getting a profession is the answer.  That can mean going to college (necessary for things like medicine, law, accounting), going to vo tech school, apprenticing (e.g. electricians, carpenters) or teaching yourself and gaining experience (e.g. coding).<p>The last route is a little problematic because there&#x27;s no real barrier to entry (other than intelligence). We&#x27;re in the midst of a demand boom for developers now, but eventually companies will start recouping their investments in code and start laying off developers or cutting pay simply because there&#x27;s so many bright people who figured they can just teach themselves code.<p>Of course, if you really enjoy and are good at software engineering then you&#x27;re going to have a career regardless.  But the people who are doing it just because it&#x27;s what pays well now will be washed out in the next recession.