programming jobs without degree

[superbonzo]

Nonsense. You can argue this until kingdom come but that won't change the fact that a bachelor's or master's degree always beats not having one. Anytime. From any perspective.

if you are claiming that a degree makes the difference in finding an avarage job or not then, as I said at the end of my post and as everybody said in this thread, I agree with you. But claiming that this is due to a difference in knowledge quality is more debatable;

consider an hypothetical employer that's seeking labour force; he will hire people by maximizing productivity expectations and minimizing recruitment and training costs; if the latter were negligible at maximal productivity expectations then the very existence of degrees and other form of certifications external to the considered industry would be simply unjustified from an economical viewpoint and, therefore, unfavored. This means that certification programs of any kind are not intrinsic features of education systems per se, they are essentially mechanisms by which labour economy out-sources recruitment and training for (among many other reasons) reducing costs.

Moreover, suppose ad absurdum an education system that randomly assigns grades rejecting a fixed fraction of people and a job system that strictly requires this or that education certificate in order to be hired; the sole effect of decreasing the job demand and decreasing recruitment costs makes the existence of certification programs economically favored in this case.

Of course, I'm not saying that modern education systems are like that, I'm simply saying that a rigorous analysis of employments rates relative to education certificates is greatly influenced by dynamics that have little to do with knowledge quality, creativity or any other intellectual trait ...