That's absurd, you're much better off going to a reputable school, working hard, grinding leetcode, completing internships, and then getting a $150k+/yr TC job to start. You'll come out far ahead by going to a good school. If you're able to start at Google while you're still in high school, that's a different story.

I have plenty of friends that dropped out of College with no degrees and now work for large tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon. It's not really tough to come in as an E1 and work your way up, especially if you have a great GitHub/Gitlab and possibly experience as a dev at another smaller company. I see a lot of women coming in as E1's off of those 12 week software engineer bootcamps as well.

There's a difference between dropping out and not going at all. There are plenty of "elite" dropouts at FAANG.

I never went to college at all and I’m making 150k a year at a large bank. It’s very possible to do with experience. But it takes a lot of experience.

This seems like a rather expensive way to experiment whether you’re well suited for something and like it.

"$150k+/yr TC" ... is that considered an average/expected comp coming right out of college these days?

It's the compensation some expect, not the one they get. And if they took a student loan based on those calculations, they end up being the subject of the article.

It's common amongst my peer group at the school I attend.

I hate to say this, but the jobs that most of us did to get in the door no longer exist. Most people create websites without any html or programming experience. You pick a CMS and buy a theme that has a few options. Gone are the days of needing to know php/css/javascript to advertise your business or start selling online.

The local hairdresser will be a poor client and not pay you very much and most developers don't want to run a small business.