You forgot one big reward with your approach. You are not 200k in debt which will take that kid with diploma to get that piece of paper. You are debt free.

I am not arguing on the merit of having a diploma is a bad thing - the colleges these days have turned their backs on the people as well.

Average $100k to get a piece of paper (LLMs are not the issue here the useless degrees that the colleges offer). Invest that $100k at an average 15% return - it becomes a lot of money 25 years from now.

Or get a piece of paper (if your major is useless) and pay the banks 100k + interest.