Should have added this, he can make in the realm of 25-35K in 2 summers from internships. If he applies it all towards school that cuts a huge amount of debt out.
Does it really make any difference? All I know is that I know of kids who never even went to college who have great jobs in CS. These aren’t brilliant Bill Gates types either; just ordinary run-of-the-mill, average HS kids who learned to program and now make 6 figures after just a couple of years.
I.e. they self-educated. Those who self-educate to the point of having desirable skills in CS are not “run-of-the-mill”, even if their high school records were (they might have been highly motivated to learn CS, but not all of the other subjects in high school). The reason most people go to college to learn the needed skills is that most people are not sufficiently motivated or organized enough to self-educate the needed foundational knowledge to get started in the field. CS is somewhat easier than some other subjects for a motivated person to self-educate, and it is also a subject where there are more viable alternative ways besides the formal credential of a bachelor’s degree to prove one’s skill and knowledge.