College can also be a valuable experience, but you're incredibly presumptuous about working experience as "years at task X" and the value of my experience relative to your education.
A degree program provides the opportunity to learn, but no guarantee that you have. Real-world experience provides a measurable demonstration of your abilities. Both are valuable, but for different reasons.
However, some people have to live with the systems (err nightmares) that were built by people gaining "real-world experience". Just a little bit of focused education can do wonders (esp if you mix in a little passion).
Bad code comes from bad and/or inexperienced programmers, which in my experience seems to have very little correlation with level of education, and quite a bit more to do with a lack of "real-world experience".
A degree program provides the opportunity to learn, but no guarantee that you have. Real-world experience provides a measurable demonstration of your abilities. Both are valuable, but for different reasons.