Great commentary here! College is usually $100,000 vs. around $2500-$10,000 for a boot camp... then there's the 4 years of opportunity cost (not working) vs. 1 year or less for a boot camp. Even if college gets you a "big tech" job paying $80,000 work-from-home vs. $60,000 work-from-home from a bootcamp, you still lose out for about a decade:

$80,000*10 = $800,000 - 3 years opportunity cost at $60,000 ($180,000) = $720,000 in 10 years with no salary growth

$60,000*10 = $600,000 in 10 years with no salary growth.

Salary growth will compound this quite a bit depending on your goals. You can make $200,000 at Amazon after 3-5 years, but that salary is unheard of at other tech companies. BUT if you prefer programming and not managing, then your salary will probably be about the same between "big tech" and "random tech" once you have 5 years of experience.