Education beyond HS can help but it's certainly not going to save you. A lot of the value I've seen from a degree has come from the social network you build while at school.
If you don't have any experience then degrees tend to be used as a filtering function on applications. Lots of people I know benefited by getting their foot in the door and then the real learning began on the job. It's not to say you don't learn good theory and get exposed to a broad range of topics but there's a large difference between understanding theory and application of that theory.
What will help is the ability to be a lifelong learner. Being curious about how things work and not getting comfortable in just one thing will take you a long way. Go build whatever crazy idea you think of, experiment with some new tool/technology/area that pulls in your interest.
In my industry whole fields can change inside of 4 years, heck the iPhone came out just 10 years ago now. I've seen multi-billion dollar companies rise and fall in the time it can take you to get a degree.
They have value, but not at their current prices. If you're motivated and can demonstrate ability you certainly don't need one.
