Ask HN: grad school vs full-time founder?

I'm currently in my 2nd year of part-time master's at a top 3 US CS school. Also recently after half a decade working in the industry I left to pursue high tech entrepreneurship full time (I saved up for years just for this). We have 0 revenue at this point in time, and are still in the exploratory phase, so I wouldn't expect any income whatsoever for a long time.

I'm contemplating dropping out of school. Paying out of pocket for a private institution like that is extremely expensive. With that kind of money I could probably stay afloat for an extra year or longer (my goal is to avoid working for someone else again for alap). I'm also not learning much, at least not compared to the hands-on experience of actually hustling and building. The contacts are good though, lots of very smart and somewhat experienced folks all interested in the startup world.

Hypothetically, let's say I can no longer stay afloat in a couple of years, and need to go back to work for a company. Would they rather have an extra year of experience of me running my own company and building and pitching most of the software for it, or would they rather see a really fancy degree? I personally know how much that degree is worth, but does the rest of the world see it that way?

What other options are there out there for people who want to have some income while still working on their ideas? I'd join a startup, but that's mostly "just another job" that goes way beyond 9 to 5, and the employee equity generally isn't really a big incentive. I hear contracting is an option, although I don't know enough about it to be able to tell if I'd still have enough time for my own company and would make enough to feed myself.

Thanks, any suggestions are much appreciated!