Degree Worth the Debt?

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I just want to comment that part of the problem is that employers are using education requirements to weed out candidates. I've done jobs in IT where I didn't use any skills I did not learn back in community college or on my own before (I could have passed the A+ when in high school, possibly junior high if I'd heard of it and done some studying but that was pre-internet and I didn't know anything about CompTia. I was doing pretty much everything the A+ covered when I was 10 for the Apple II family, and for Macs or IBM compatibles as well by the time I was 12.).
Heck, I'd say most of the IT jobs I've done I could have done with only my associates degree and certifications. Yet I continuously see entry level jobs that paid (until recent inflation) $13-16/hour that required "bachelor's degree minimum, master's preferred". In the last three years it has gone up to $15-20/hour.

Also in the U.S. there has been a stigma against trade schools, considering them to be second-rate schools "for those that couldn't make it into a decent college", resulting in too many college degrees so employers just up the education requirements because they can. The degree doesn't add much to the tech's skills. In fact, most of the classes from a college degree are "gen ed" courses that have little practical use on the job. I call them "junk courses". Worse, the actual on-topic credit courses don't adequately prepare you for the job or the certification exams. Most of what I learned when I upgraded from associates to bachelor's didn't help much with practical experience in real-world situations with what you are actually doing or what a starting IT employee will actually be entrusted to do. You still need on-the-job training in each company's specific setup.
I believe this is by design so the college can offer non-credit courses geared towards the IT certifications that are actually more practically useful to an IT professional.

So no, I don't think a degree is worth it if it were not for the fact that the ATS systems will automatically filter out anybody that doesn't have "B.S. degree" or better under the "education" section of their resume.
The main problem is the myth about a college degree and the fact that HR people use degrees as a quick and easy way to reduce the number of resumes they need to go through when they don't understand the job at all. A lot of the jobs asking for a college degree don't need one and the college degree in question doesn't teach many useful skills for the job. You have to pick up the skills on your own in addition to your college courses.