Weird how all of these think pieces pondering places and lifestyles available without a degrees only focus on healthcare and manufacturing.

I've met numerous people in my 10+ years of software development without a degree. I don't have one either.

As I heard from one candidate in an interview, “software development is one of very few career paths left to have a middle class lifestyle without a degree.“

My biased opinion is that devs without a degree hustle a little more and are more willing to tackle brownfield projects and nasty refactoring/conversion efforts.