Yep, the people who graduated about 3-4 years ago are all making more than I do after more than a decade. It seems like that's just how it works.
How uncommon is it for someone with no highschool diploma (GED), or college diploma to get a job as a software engineer at a Fortune 500 company? Am I completely fucked if I ever lose this job? It's my second SE job...
Like OP may have been hinting at, I had a really fucked up family situation and this path was the only one that I could take- should I plan on going back to school just for future job market security?
I have watched that diminish over the last 20 years.
The unspoken secret in programming is that a CS degree basically signals absolutely nothing about programming skill. You can get a 1st in CS and be a rubbish programmer, you can get a chemistry degree and be an amazing one. A lot of CS is utterly irrelevant to programming, and the vast majority of programming skills are not covered by CS degree.
Once you're past 2-3 years experience it stops being relevant, before that it's a way to filter CVs by managers who want to pretend their CS degree wasn't a complete waste of time.
If they're asking for a CS degree for a senior role it's basically advertising they're a clueless company.
The main thing to do IMO is spend time building a network. A recommendation in the right place at the right time can open doors that would otherwise be closed to you.
School is an option, but the opportunity cost has been too high so far for me. Though doing a freelance PhD thesis probably wouldn't hurt.