Good, well informed advice by all!
Another perspective though, and please forgive any perception of negativity, this is merely meant for illustrative purpose only... the opinions above are from people who either have, or know people who it would appear have done quite well for themselves.
But to put another perspective, I have several friends who have good quality Aeronautical Engineering degrees and just couldn't get a job in the industry.
Just as a comment from my own perspective, there is a lot of serious competition out there for any of the jobs in aviation that need a degree, and there are even fewer of them that could remotely be described as "fun"; of my friends with degrees that did get jobs in the aviation sector most left as the jobs left them feeling unfulfilled.
While I freely admit that my comments maybe somewhat of a generalization, with numerous exceptions, aviation jobs that need degrees don't directly have a lot to do with aircraft, for example.
Designers who, by and large have degrees, don't have a need to see an aircraft every day, or every month, maybe less... is that the Aviation job that would inspire after three years of studying at University? In my organization a number of the senior management have degrees, but MBA's... not engineering degrees, yet every member of middle and senior management bar a couple were licensed engineers.
I personally feel that the engineering arm of the industry could do with a bloody serious shake-up to promote engineering, and better inform the bright eyed youth about how the many layers of the industry fit together, so that those dreamy eyed graduates who enter the industry are not disillusioned within ...well weeks, and bugger off to work for the automotive industry.
Please don't think me too negative, I've been in the industry all my life, and like a colleague at work think that the industry is populated by "enthusiasts" and we muddle along. I've done the license, degree, masters etc stuff but think it's time the engineering arm of the industry was shaken up and reformed so we have the engineers, of whatever grade or qualification that we need to move forward.