I’ll throw a couple that haven’t been mentioned

Arcane

Sonic The Hedgehog

Aside from all the current advice here. The golden rule is usually find friends in the field. Research where IT people go in your area and start to make friends. The job market is vicious right now, the more people you know, the better.

There’s also a lot of peer pressure for college. My niece started not too long ago. She was going to go to a community college where she would have gotten a decent education, but her cousin peer pressured her into going to a more expensive college. Her parents did not want to pay for it and told her to get a loan, which she refused. A few tantrums later she got her wish. The college was crazy in their curriculum and she dropped out after a semester or two, her parents ended up owing money and she went to another college. Not sure if her credits even transferred.

Staying in state helps a lot, and just doing research on what is really needed. My 4 year bachelor’s tuition was $15,000 at a state college. The same education in the fancier colleges was $30,000 per semester, vs my $3,000 ish. We all ended up at the same place, except I had no debt. I went to check recently and I think the same degree for 4 years is about $20,000 so it didn’t go up much in the last 15yrs.