I'm a smart kid from a poor family: a straight A student who had to drop out of high school to pick up where dad left off when he left.

I've tried several times to get into good schools like Stanford and Yale, but--in addition to not being able to get into top schools--for years I honestly couldn't really afford national-tier, state schools, either.

I have been working as a software engineer for five years now, however. Recently started making six figures. ( Yay! ) And so--have the option of finally going to college in STEMS. Probably Ohio State.

If I go to a school like Ohio State, I won't graduate in debt, but my family's savings will be wiped out. And I'll forgo six figures for about three years to do it.

I'll have to live away from my family for at least three years. They can take care of themselves now, but--I hesitate to live that far away from them for that long.

The quality of company I can get into today is quite low, the sort of companies that make the software people love to hate at their jobs: bug ridden, low-usability inventory management systems, for example.

I normally get hired at the bottom rung, then leap frog most of my managers after a year at the behest of C-level management--which inevitably ends in my political demise at the company shortly thereafter.

I prefer working on the architecture of large applications--and kind of mix of sysops with software engineering. But, I'm happy enough just to be writing code. Of course, I'd rather work hard on good code than hardly at all on bad code.

My hope is that, if I go to college, I will be hired at a higher level from the beginning at better companies, with coworkers that are a bit less... prone to emotional irrationalism.

Will getting a STEMS degree from not-Stanford help me get into better positions at better companies, do you suppose? Any career advice that cones to mind is welcome.