On the flip side, I’m a former sysadmin and I only stick around for 5 years because I had the educational credentials to move onto another field (and then another field). I’m glad I did the IT thing in my 20’s, and still like to tinker with homelab stuff 20 years later, but in the end it was a stepping stone towards something else (that does require formal schooling). The degree is a tool that can be used to control on a few more things in your life, in the hopes that you can go where you want to end up.
On the flip side, I’m a former sysadmin and I only stick around for 5 years because I had the educational credentials to move onto another field (and then another field). I’m glad I did the IT thing in my 20’s, and still like to tinker with homelab stuff 20 years later, but in the end it was a stepping stone towards something else (that does require formal schooling). The degree is a tool that can be used to control on a few more things in your life, in the hopes that you can go where you want to end up.