Actually in terms of self-awareness, development and personal growth, experiencing university life can have a tremendous impact beyond the classroom. On average, I'd say it can at least doubles your social skills to an order of magnitude improvement social skills for some, and improve your quality of life. My personal opinion is that for many young people (and perhaps those not so young) considering this question, this can be an far greater benefit, and a more important benefit to your quality-of-life.
Having a degree can also make it easier to get a chance to be considered during a tight job market, and improve chances at negotiating a better salary / contract.
Getting a degree, without learning to code, will certainly make you an incompetent bane of your co-workers existence, no matter how short that career may be.
While being aware of the financial realities (and potential opportunities for assistance) of the cost of university, the strongest case tends to obviously be: do both.
Others have pointed out the obvious complimentary nature of knowledge (theory) combined with experience (practice). If you don't know what to work towards, you can waste a lot of time and effort doing things the hard way or rediscovering the bubble and merge sort. Or if you don't know what can and can't be done, or how to do it, you end up a hard working monkey with a very limited playbook. You may find the ever constant change in technology a burden, rather than an enjoyment (I mean after the first 5 years), because in my experience those who understand the fundamentals, those abstract or theoretical bits, can adapt to change more readily and often with dramatically less effort.
Most famous university dropouts (in Sciences and IT) both made it through admissions obviously, and more importantly left before they could finish their degree: that is to say, they were most likely in their 3rd or 4th year, not entirely flunking out first semester (though having a rough to horrible first year grades isn't particular uncommon even for many who later become professors themselves). In a fair number of cases, including some William guy from Redmond, they complete their degree later in life.
In the end; it is what you make of it, just like everything else in life.