Well when it comes to having income I guess I'm screwed.

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Honestly, if your only reason for dropping out is the belief that you won't be able to repay your student loans, I urge you to strongly reconsider.

For the most part, career success as an aspie means finding a career where you can get away with having "good" days and "bad" days as long as you occasionally pull off a marathon and get everything that needs to be done finished on time, and ideally have minimal forced interpersonal contact. With VERY few exceptions, careers like that require a college degree. Most of the time, it doesn't matter what your degree is IN, as long as you have one in SOMETHING.

The cold truth is that it's expensive to be aspie, and if you have ADD overlaid on top, you can probably double the "aspie tax" you'll end up paying for things like psych visits, meds insurance won't cover, late fees on bills you forgot about, and everything else.

Look at it this way: if you get a degree, and can't repay your student loans due to unemployment, are you really any worse off than if you have no degree and end up equally broke and unemployed? It's not like they can make you sell body parts or plasma to pay your student loans. At least with a degree in something, you'll have a fighting chance.

I think coffee shops tend to be much more laid back than full scale restaurants. Especially if you can find a non-franchise one. I've worked at one part time and it wasn't that fast-paced. In fact the hardest part was getting bored and sleepy when business was slow.

Coffee shops that serve food tend to be the most laid back restaurants, ever, as well.

Well, the sad fact is, short of becoming a nun in a strict order that takes vows of solitude and silence (which isn't really a viable option unless you're Catholic and can at least pretend to be religious), just about any job is going to force you to deal with others at some point. What you have to do is find a career where you aren't assaulted by forced social interaction constantly and can buffer yourself. It's one thing to deal with coworkers for 30 minutes in a staff meeting. It's another matter entirely to be forced to interact with others from the moment you walk in the door.

Actually, I can think of two Aspie-friendly careers that don't (necessarily) require degrees: park rangers and long-distance truck drivers.

I did a masters, and took out a loan to do it. I regret it now as I could not get a job afterwards, and they were still demanding payment. The payment was a lot of money, and it was only just paying off the interest the loan was accruing. Fortunately my GF's father offered to pay it off on the understanding I would repay him when I could, which I reluctantly accepted. I hoped the masters would be the magic ingredient to help me get a job. That edge over people with just an undergraduate degree. Unfortunately it wasn't, as I hadn't quite accepted yet my difficulties lay in my Asperger's and subsequent ability to do well in interview. If there's any chance it will put you in financial hardship afterwards don't do it. I would highly recommend anyone in the UK do a degree under the UK loans system though, as you don't begin repaying until you earn a certain amount - so you have no need to worry about paying it back.

In terms of washing cars, I think Aspies would be quite inclined towards what is known as detailing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_detailing Unfortunately the general public often don't understand why they should spend £100-200 for you to spend a whole day cleaning it, when they can take it to the place where illegal immigrants, with stone filled sponges to scratch their car, can "clean" it for £4.