I very intentionally received only an associate’s degree with the plan being to immediately get a job and start learning from there. It’s worked great. Except that was 20 years ago and now many jobs “require” a bachelor’s or otherwise have the nerve to say that 4 years of on the job experience is the same as 1 year of college.

In my experience, I’ve seen the same thing. The university time kick starts things. But university lessons are so different than real on the job work.