On balance, it will probably be better for you in the long run. I am a high school and college dropout, and nearly as old as dirt. I am entirely self-taught with computers, with no academic credentials. I didn't even take CS courses while in college. I am not a failure career-wise, but I believe that a CS, EE, or similar degree, in hind-sight, would have helped me.
There's 3 main reasons for this:
1) there is a lot of conceptual and algorithm stuff that is drummed into people at school that, while possible to learn on one's own, requires time and effort. If I had time to study Knuth in depth, I would love to do so. This subject matter is very often useful--in hindsight, this is my biggest regret for not having studied CS, because there are gaps in my knowledge that would have been easy to fill had I been studying these things long ago.
2) while employers generally do not require a CS degree, it is very often that their employment screening steps will filter you out if you cannot regurgitate much of the stuff described in step 1: algorithms and coding styles taught in college, the way that colleges teach them. No matter how much PR a company claims for itself in looking for intelligence, creativity, and experience, if you haven't internalized the textbook stuff, then you'll frequently get filtered out of interview process quite early. You'll still be able to get jobs, but just not likely the ones with the biggest marquee names with the highest candidate:opening ratio.
3. If you want to do a startup, you'll want to be in the vicinity of people who also want to do a startup. That's much easier when you're in college, and you get looked upon favorably if you come from a prestigious institution. Seed and angel investors like throwing cash at pairs of kids from good schools who can make something that seems useful and is in a hot space.
So, yes, go to college. Study CS, math and also some business stuff like econ. Avoid humanities like plague.