You can be a small-time sherware developer and still get quite good money (I sell my OCX's in my town in the USA and believe me or not I make quite good money as for 18 year old). I'm in the last class in High School and basically my college will be paid by me only (it took me three years to get that kind of money, but it's almost $35000 so it is not that bad - other thing is that I have full four-year scholarship )
Just my $0.02 to show that the only thing you have to do is be good at selling your ideas to others. It pays in my case