What year did you graduate?
College can still be affordable. The specific college you want, the one that other people have heard of outside an eight-county radius, dorm living the whole time, out-of-state tuition, famous professors, guest lecturers whose names are well-known... well, probably not.
Just checked, the one I went to is about $18k/yr now, in-state tuition & fees. That's roughly an inflation-rate increase since when I went. You'll likely have some debt without scholarships or parental help, but a college job can keep that under control. CLEP out of a couple early classes, take advantage of that tuition being flat-rate rather than per-hour(!), and it's very manageable. Start at a community college and transfer, and the numbers look even better.
This is purely from a software development context and obviously doesn’t apply outside, but Given that choice is almost just eschew college period. I have not seen good quality programs at a small schools and I imagine you also lose out in quality of employer sourcing, networking etc.
The time cost alone would make it seem that it’s better just to break into the field without education. It’s not easy, but it’s not particularly difficult either.