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I think you should have always something to fall back-on if things go sour for you. Whether that be a college degree or a skill-set that you know can obtain work for you. With that said though, you are young and free. There is time in the future for college but the market for your ideas may close once college is done.

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I don't feel like a college degree in CS would really make that much of a difference to a good programmer, most companies are looking for experience and not degrees. Am I right?

The whole "something to fall back on" thing used to work for college degrees, but these days it doesn't seem to be much of a safety net.

I'd agree with that sentiment. I've met people with masters degrees working in a captcha farm. Makes you think about perceived versus actual value.

Also makes you think about profiteering and exploitation. Universities and financial aid institutions have deliberately strip mined the perception of the college degree as a career asset. The result is that college degrees have less meaning, and that the labor market has been flooded with college graduates with staggering levels of student loan debt and no job to help them pay it off.

A liberal arts degree, no, but an engineering or computer science degree can be extremely helpful.

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