First of all, if you can afford college I would definitely go to college. Expensive colleges often have financial aid, scholarships and loans. Apply and see what they say afterwards with financial aid. State and city colleges are cheaper, and some are good. If you have to work a part-time job, get one.

Furthermore, you should know that the IT profession is having a lot of problems, and unless something changes, will continue having problems. While workloads increase, and hours lengthen, salaries have been frozen or even cut, which inflation compounds. Informationweek salary survey

Some people say "It's just the economy". This makes no sense to me. I can understand it if a flood happens and people say "it's just the weather". But when the WTC fell down people didn't say "it's just the terrorists" and shrug their shoulders. Tornados, tsunamis, volcano explosions and floods are natural disasters, wars and economic difficulties are man-made disasters. In the 19th century, the railroads told it's workers that their wages were being cut and the workers seized control of the railroad and the army had to be called out, destroying much of the railroad's property in the process. I'd say things have gotten bad enough that people should start getting upset about what's going on, I know I am, and I'm lucky enough to be employed. How many of your friends are out of work? Has your pay been cut or frozen? Are they laying off people - meaning more work for you (or are they going to lay you off the second they aren't making a profit from your presence there)? Are you working 9-5 without a pager and weekends free with nice vacation time? Are you working in a profession where by the time someone reaches 40 no one wants to hire them and their RSI-crippled hands? Hell, someone posted a job ad to Usenet from Monster where the company said only college students need apply. That's who they want all jobs to go to - college students, H1-Bs and so forth.

If I was you, I would read newsgroups like alt.computer.consultants and us.issues.occupations.computer-programmers. I would check out web sites like Washtech, the Programmers Guild and so forth. I would read up on RSI, H1-Bs, section 1706, NDA's and non-competes where the company owns anything you do in your spare time, about how older programmers are unemployable, about how many hours people work, how they carry a pager 24/7 and so forth. If you look at the Informationweek article, you see things have gotten worse - the laws keep getting worse, pushed by the ITAA, hundreds of thousands of H1-B come into the country as jobs get shipped to India, Romania etc.

Also, remember that working on command is not as enjoyable as programming. It's fun to program on your own, what you want to program. When someone is directing you what to do, telling you to do it their way and so forth, it becomes less fun than when you're making your own decisions of how and what to program.

The bottom line is things are getting worse. If I was in the 11th grade, I would not go into IT. If I wanted to make nice money, I would go on a track to work in a financial company, or be a manager, and that means college - a good college. If I had no interest in money I'd become an artist or something fun like that, and if I liked programming I'd do it in my spare time. I already have years of experience so it's not worth it for me to start over again. If you do become a programmer, you should be cognizant of all of this (which goes for admins as well), and should join the Programmers Guild so as to fight against this.