On college degrees, they are kinda necessary for engineers. Thats not something you want to learn by experience. College degrees allow you to learn from other peoples experience...
Well I'll be danged...
My whole family are engineers on my dads side.
I myself went to college sold weed and ended up dropping out (math major)then getting a job in manufacturing engineering (no degree).
Guess what I do now? Mostly CNC programming and tool design but I also educate noobie college grad engineers that come to work
for my company . Some of the stuff I see them do just boggles my mind.They obviously don't have a clue.
Experience is far more valuable IMO.