How long do you have to attend colloge for learning computers

A bachelor degree in CS takes 4 years. A master degree takes around 2 years. A PHD in CS can take around 5 years. Personally I've spent 5 years for my bachelor + master degree(I did both in the same school with a bunch of AP credits so I was able to do it with 1 less year).

But you don't have to! My wife majors in Finance and taught herself programming with Coursera courses. After that she attended a software engineering bootcamp for about 3 months before getting an offer at Uber.

Truth be told, as a software engineer, you have to keep on learning to stay competitive, whether the learning comes from school or work. Software technologies are constantly changing. I'd say the real learning begins after college when you start on your first job.