[heedlessly3]

This is not true at all.

There are plenty of self-studied developers who have full-time jobs on HN. I've met a vast number of devs in real life who didn't go to college. It's not incredibly rare. It costs almost nothing but time to self-study and build a portfolio.

The other option would be go thru university. And there are many universities that offer a BS in CS for a reasonable price such as University of Florida. You can apply for a FAFSA, and depending on your financial needs, you could get it all paid for in grants. It will likely take 3 years but you get a legit degree by an accredited University, not some University of Phoenix equivalent scam. Some of these online BSCS students even get accepted to reputable PhD programs, good luck doing that from Lambda School because it's not happening.