testerofwaters

I'm working at a startup as a Rails developer. I was hired straight out of high school, which meant being underpaid, though I've spent my time improving my skills. Long story short, the job market in Silicon Valley is really hot - I now have 2 outside offers in the $110-120k range (0-0.5% equity) at early to late-stage startups, and I might be able to bid the offers up to the 130k+ range. At the same time, I'm thinking about going back to college - a non-Ivy but top CS school (think Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley, UIUC).

One thought I have is that we're possibly at the high point of the current tech boom and that I should take a job while the market is hot, then go back to school when there's a cooldown. There's also the fact that as a fresh CS grad, 4 years down the line, I would be making roughly the same, or maybe just slightly more, as I could make right now (100-120k).

But I wonder whether going back to school after being in the industry for 2-3 years will even make sense.

Ultimately, I don't know how to weigh the social and educational experience of college against starting my career 4 years early. I'm not particularly concerned that a lack of a degree itself will hold me back in the future. Any thoughts?

Update: no college debt, parents thankfully have enough to pay for it.

I've been looking for a job. A few companies/recruiters have contacted me asking if would come in for an interview (I didn't apply). I'm reasonably sure that I would not accept an offer from them (due to company size, the company's product/market, and/or the company's brand), even if they gave me one. On the other hand, some engineers I've spoken to have said that their initial judgment of a company was proven wrong or changed when they actually interviewed.

That being said, should I (ethically) take interviews just for 1) practice, 2) leverage with the companies I actually want, and/or 3) the possibility of being pleasantly surprised, or should I just decline and not waste their time?