Employers want to hire people who can solve problems. And right now, you're problem is that you need a degree. If you can't figure out a solution to that problem one way or another, who is going to believe that you have the tenacity and smarts to figure out out other problems (such as programming problems). Figure out something: take out loans in your own name, work during the day and get a degree at night, go for continuing education courses. If you want it enough you will be able to find a way. And having the degree will help to solve the problem of people not wanting to hire you for lack of a degree, which is going to be with you for your entire career if you don't get one.