With respect, may I suggest that you are evaluating tertiary education as a means to a commercial end, and I don't believe that is all it can be. I am not sufficiently familiar with the American systems of further education, and your reference to attending college is a little confusing. We attend a university, which usually consists of many colleges, but that may simply be a question of two nations separated by a common language.
My point being that further education can and should be a way of enhancing your experience of life - not merely a way of increasing your income. University exposes you to many new experiences, new people, and new ideas, which a technical college or trade school is unlikely to. Not only does this provide opportunities to learn new stuff, but it piques your interest in new, and hitherto unexplored, fields of knowledge.
Think of how much more interesting society can be, when the general interest, and knowledge base, goes a bit further than the fortunes of the local football team, or what's on the box tonight. When you can discuss the motivations of Gustav Mahler in writing
Kindertotenlieder, or what Fredrich Nietzsche meant to convey when he wrote "...if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." with the local greengrocer.