> Similarly, vocational programs or apprenticeships are not a formal education either.

They are in some countries, you get at the vocational programs or apprenticeships alongside the highschool, and in the end you might get the opportunity to apply to the university or just carry on with your job.

That is how I did mine in the 1990's Portuguese education system, and how I was already coding and understanding the big boys computer world at 16y.

But if your goal is to be a musician, a music degree is basically useless. Whether you want to play in an orchestra, perform in a rock band, or compose video game soundtracks, nobody cares whether you have a degree or not - they want to hear you perform.

I won't say there are exactly zero self-taught professionals in classical music because I don't know for sure. But I will say I've never heard of one. If they exist at all they're exceptionally rare.

The music industry is built on the back of people with music degrees. They don't get the name recognition of headliners. But song writers, arrangers, and session musicians are all very likely to have formal training in theory and maybe performance.

Producers and engineers less so. Those are more of a track record who-you've-worked-with occupation.

All industries are built on the backs of truly educated and passionate talent. Those people often don't reap the fruit they help sow to everyone else that makes billions, trillion off them.

Music is no different from software in thst regard.

Not only is that not true at all. There are many other jobs you can land other than performing with a formal music degree. Of course with the right experience you might get away with not getting that formal education but you open so many doors by going through school and getting the "useless" piece of paper.

Case in point: Rachel “Raygun” Gunn. She had all the credentials in the world but single-handedly became the reason break dancing is no longer in the Olympics.

Slight overstatement… break dancing was one of the locally picked sports and the next Olympics had already selected different sports before she performed…

But she is a good example of degrees not equaling skill

It should also be noted that she doesn't have a degree in "performing," as far as I'm aware, she has a degree in "studying the culture" of break dancing. So, we (or at least any of us who haven't read her work) don't actually know if she's good at what her degree is in. We just know that she's not good at performing.