One thing people tend to skip over, a lot of jobs that are considered to require degrees don't. Programming... nope, IT... nope, Infosec... nope. Arguably there are a lot more that don't require a degree or could be replaced by a shorter and cheaper trade school version if it existed.

Germany for example does something I like a lot. There is a mix between trade schools and universities. You can become a doctor in Germany by going to a trade school, they are paid during the programs. But Germany also has the whole free university thing and doesn't have a hang-up on trade skills being lower class. I figure this is because careers such as Doctors can be obtained through trade schools.

I personally make 6 figures, and live in a major city that doesn't have inflated cost of living like most of California and NYC. My income alone is more than double the average household in my city. I don't have anything more than a high school degree and I work in tech, in fact a degree hasn't ever been a barrier for me employment-wise except at an engineering firm, at the firm I couldn't have engineer in my job title but I still got paid the same or more then those with engineer in theirs.