I quit college. It was boring. I got my first programming job from a reader of my blog (www.curi.us), because he saw I was very smart. Low pay (low for programming, but better than waiting tables or whatever) but I learned a lot and, with that knowledge, got a great subsequent job.

If you're good at stuff, opportunities exist. If you're not, but you're motivated, you can learn more, faster, cheaper, outside of school.

My first ever job was assembling lawn mowers at a local shop at 14, before that I was selling software downloaded from select BBSes. From there I went into making pizzas and finally stacking boxes in a cold storage warehouse. Most of that stuff was from pounding the pavement looking for work.

My first technical job was doing dial-up tech support I found that job over IRC. Who knew typing +++ATH0 into mIRC could get you a job?

From there I worked tech support for the local cable company, and then wrote them some scheduling software in my spare time. After that they had me program instead of answer the phone.

I subscribe to the garbage man theory of value, do the jobs no one else wants to do but are essential to society. Avoid any job that seems glamouros it usually pays like crap.