Some companies still require college degrees even for software development, unfortunately. This checks the box for those companies at a low cost. Of course whether you'd want to work at such a bureaucratic institution is another question entirely, but there is a good reason for still wanting a degree if you do.
I’ve heard many companies will not allow you to move past IC type roles without a degree, so if you want to go into management or something that’s an issue. Also, you have the immigration aspect mentioned in the article and throughout the thread.
This has been my experience. I built a career for 10 years without a degree. I was fine during my entry level and mid-level positions. I was able to outperform people that had bachelors degrees and get jobs.
But as I started applying for High-level and VP positions, I found that not having a degree got harder. I was mostly competing against applicants that have Master's degrees, and I don't even have a bachelors. My dad went back to get his degree at 55 years old. He found the same thing, the high-level jobs are very competitive and not having a degree really hurts at that level.
But seriously, if you have 10 years of software engineering experience, what do you gain by doing a bachelors CS program?