Just for starters, let me qualify my background so that my following thoughts may have some basis. I started out in school from a late start, after I was already married and had children. I will not go into the reason for any of this as it is not pertinent to the conversation. So, I started out seeking an electronic technology degree in a 2 year program at the age of 25. With those years behind me of working jobs that varied in nature, but were all labor intensive. I realized that I wanted to step up my education when I kept running into lack of electrical/electronic knowledge. I was a machinist and, the production metal parts that I was turning in a lathe had cuts that would last 12 to 15 minutes for each cut. So I went down to the library and checked out a fat beginning electronics textbook that I happened to know was used by many schools to teach beginning electronics, and as each cutting pass was started, I would read the material and work the problems in the book. This is how I originally learned ohm's law and was introduced to the world of electronics. This is what made me decide to take the next step and enter into the world of secondary education and to seek a degree.
I started in school as an adult and only took classes after or before my workday as a part time student. Without any further explanation, this proved to be a very long process, and as time went on, and I had to move where the work was, I did not finish a degree. Eventually, after 20 years of this part time study, I could not qualify for the original program that I started out, because, schools change programs every few years. So, during that 20 year period, I decided that since that degree was not possible, I would concentrate on general knowledge and took classes that interested me, such as drafting, programming and physics. One of the problems with having to move to different areas to chase work, at least here in the US, is that school curricula does not exchange from school to school for a particular type of degree, the new school always wants in the student to take 10-30 more hours at their school in order to qualify for THEIR degree program.
Just a short interjection here, since I am old, 64 years, and the internet has not been available during most of these years that I am speaking of for my career.
I finally gave up on getting any kind of degree, and eventually stopped taking classes altogether more than 20 years ago. I am now 64 years old and here is what I learned from my experiences in trying to get jobs relating to my interests and field of study. Most of the times that I was seeking a new job, I would find a colleague, past or present, that would tell me of an opening for a specific job and I would wind up interviewing for the job that I wanted and not get that job, but would get offered a "lower" position because of my lack of a degree. Jobs became more difficult to get over the last 25 years because of the changing economy here in the US, and I will not get into the reasons, but suffice it to say that I had fewer choices and the jobs would not last because of company downsizing, sellouts, shutdowns, etc. which meant the there were fewer and fewer jobs that I could get.
So, here is the take away from my personal experiences in my career as a non-degreed engineer, who has had some small successes in career, and some not so successful periods. The "degree" in a technical field is essential to get a rapid deployment into a set field in that the curricula is finely tuned to target a specific area and teaches the student the very basic technical tools needed to get started in the field. The actual completion and diploma in the field is a door opener to get the person qualified to interview for the related jobs. Without the diploma, the skepticism of the qualifications is a matter that will not get your resume onto the pile of other resumes that are pre-qualified, and therefore, you will not get you the chance to interview for such of a position. The very few times that I was able to get the interview for such positions was when their was a common link with a person that was able to get me in the door for such interviews. The battle was still uphill because of the lack of diploma, and often I settle for those "lower" positions with a vague promise of if I did well, I would get the title. (Never happened.)
Whew...
, I hope this brings some thought process for those who can learn from my experiences. Apologize for the long winded explanations.