I'm a self taught programmer with no degree who came to it late in life(past 30.) I love programming and I like to think that I'm fairly good at it and I think I can justify that belief with the 6 figure income I earn and architect title I have.
And after 10 years of doing this, I am going back to school to get my CS degree. I believe you can be successful without a degree but there's a wall that you will eventually hit where you're natural talent can't take you farther without some assistance. Unfortunately all the classes I would like to take to satisfy my craving for knowledge are graduate level courses. So I'm going back to school so I can get my degree so I can finally learn the stuff that I want to, and need to know.