The "you'll be stuck with all the jobs other people don't want" thing is risible.
I have worked with people for YEARS before i even learned that they have or don’t have a CS degree. I have interviewed many dozens of people, both as a hiring manager and a peer, and we only look at schooling if they have zero professional experience.
In my experience, a degree can help you get your first job, but after that it is all about your work experience and the connections with the people you have worked with.
My first job, of course, was prior to all that, driving various vehicles on my Dad's dryland wheat farm in northern Montana.
So I feel that I was particularly lucky about finding good co-op positions, as many of my colleagues were at less interesting gigs at Motorolla, sorting resistors by color code.
(Some of these are documented at https://ciex-software.com/)
Coming from a very small town, University was a bigger uptick than likely for kids growing up in the Big City.
I've only seen it at one company in Los Angeles where the founders were from USC and several USC students ended up interning with us through their networking program, a few of which joined the company full time later on. It's been the exception so far.