a degree is fairly affordable in the US. you can do first 2 years at a community college for no more than $2k/year and then can do the last two at a state university for 9-20k/yr.
if you can get a degree that actually returns you money through an enhanced wage then you can pay that off no problem.
I'm not sure which community colleges you are going to. When my wife went to CUNY BMCC it was on the order of ~$2400/semester, so roughly $4800/year. Still not too unreasonable, but more than twice what you were saying.
Granted, this is NYC, not known for being super cheap, but I didn't think that CUNY was considered absurdly expensive either. Upon checking, the local community college where I grew up (the Orlando area) is about $1500/semester, so about $3000 a year, assuming you take summers off [2].
[1] https://www.bmcc.cuny.edu/students/bursar/tuition-and-fees/
[2] https://net1.valenciacollege.edu/future-students/financial-a...
https://www.dallascollege.edu/paying-for-college/cost-tuitio...
Even twice what I was saying is a pretty low amount compared to a private university at 60k/year.
I don't disagree with your thesis, regardless. If you do something with the CUNY system, you're still on the hook for <$10/year (at least for tuition, rent+food is a different story). A total investment of ~$50-60k total cost is definitely worth it from an economic perspective. With the exception of eccentrics like me, generally speaking the high-paying jobs are gatekept behind academia, meaning that the tuition would pay for itself within 2-3 years, easily.
It's not like I'm some hypergenius or anything (far from it), I'm just somewhat of a self-learner and tend to do alright in whiteboard interviews.
New grads are pretty undifferentiated except for university prestige so that's a rough time to compete if you're from a less prestigious school or no school.