I've done hiring in the software space for a long time and I can virtually assure you if I saw your portfolio and your resume, even if your code was great, I would be very leery of hiring you. It will because I will assume you don't have the theoretical grounding that I want my employees to have. Having the paper doesn't assure me that you have it either, but not having it will make me think you don't.
You haven't mentioned any OS level programming you've done, or compilers, or graphics, or AI. No set or category theory, or complexity analysis or data structure analysis. These are all things that a basic CS graduate will have at least encountered (if their program is at all acceptable). It is entirely possible to learn these on your own but the more obvious way to learn them is to go where they teach them.
Further, you need to learn a big lesson that I learned at undergraduate. There are tons of people smarter than you. That isn't a bad thing, it's a good one. If you're the smartest person in the class (including the professor, TA's etc), get out of the class. Worst case scenario is that you realize that the early classes are too remedial for you and you get a professor to let you into the upper ones early. I and many of my friends did graduate level course work as undergraduates. If you can't be intellectually engaged at a major accredited university, you aren't trying.
That's not to say you can't be a good programmer without a degree. Some of the very best I know don't have a degree or not one in a computer field. But almost to a person, they feel the sting of that lack of intellectual grounding and wish they had done a degree in the subject.
All that said, the cost issue is a very real one. So working to mitigate your debt should also be a priority. I worked in the software field all the way through college. It's a field that allows for paid internships, and I even TA'd some classes as an undergraduate. Things are more expensive now than when I was in school so you will have to work harder at it than I did. Good Luck.
You haven't mentioned any OS level programming you've done, or compilers, or graphics, or AI. No set or category theory, or complexity analysis or data structure analysis. These are all things that a basic CS graduate will have at least encountered (if their program is at all acceptable). It is entirely possible to learn these on your own but the more obvious way to learn them is to go where they teach them.
Further, you need to learn a big lesson that I learned at undergraduate. There are tons of people smarter than you. That isn't a bad thing, it's a good one. If you're the smartest person in the class (including the professor, TA's etc), get out of the class. Worst case scenario is that you realize that the early classes are too remedial for you and you get a professor to let you into the upper ones early. I and many of my friends did graduate level course work as undergraduates. If you can't be intellectually engaged at a major accredited university, you aren't trying.
That's not to say you can't be a good programmer without a degree. Some of the very best I know don't have a degree or not one in a computer field. But almost to a person, they feel the sting of that lack of intellectual grounding and wish they had done a degree in the subject.
All that said, the cost issue is a very real one. So working to mitigate your debt should also be a priority. I worked in the software field all the way through college. It's a field that allows for paid internships, and I even TA'd some classes as an undergraduate. Things are more expensive now than when I was in school so you will have to work harder at it than I did. Good Luck.