>I've been in the IT field for 20 years and I know probably
>5 or 6 people in the field who have a degree. It seems that
>experience is more valuable than a degree, would you agree?

Depends on what you give them to do. Generally (and from my experience), better educated guys are more likely to be efficient and to invent techniques to make their lives easier, i.e. to automate their own work. With lower education, they tend to stop learning at some point. In this line of work, you stop learning when you retire, or not even then (hat tip to Grady McCue :). Conversely, if you've stopped learning, you should retire, or do something else.

My first programming team (in '86-89) consisted of four mathematicians, and a couple of economists (plus a few more economists in the branch offices). Guess who was programming, and who was running daily work.