If you were an employer...

I would ask them to perform some practical tasks. The one that does it better gets the job. The online college is out of question anyway...

I definitely will put the college graduate above the others. I'm not sure I know about online college..

I would go with the one that has experience because he already knows about the job and will be easier to work with.

I personally kind of like the idea of the self-taught person who has years of experience already under their belt. But the person who posted above me has the truly best answer. You need to judge the actual people involved on their abilities before you choose, and not just go by what kind of a college situation they were involved in. A person's true ability isn't necessarily linked to something like that. But I still think that the self-taught person who already has personal experience in the field is probably going to be the one to do the best job, in most cases.

I would go with the one with life-experience. The college degree is good, but alot of times this person would go just by-the-book with what they've learned in classes. And often, what looks good on paper, and in theory, just isn't the best way to go. The ones that teach these classes often haven't been in the field for awhile. The ways they teach are alot of times not practical and don't work in reality.