Well there is no better investment you can make for yourself than taking responsibility for you own education. If the question is will certification, degree, or diploma give you an advantage then a more direct answer would be yes and/or no maybe depends.
Certifications are cool as they are reasonable as far as costs goes but the ones that I have now, more than a few years old, only reminds me as to how out of date I am as to current information that is relevant. The vicious cycle of certification is they need to be updated every few years to remain relevant and any thing older, like the ones I have, no longer have the same street credit as they had on day one.
That said where these devices can get you ahead is people. They give you the opportunity to get involved with the like minded so you can network, get linked in,become involved by learning first hand what matters and having your best friend working at Epic will do more for you than a 100k degree. If you have to go some place to get it then it’s worth it just to get out from behind he monitor and more so if it’s something that your really interested in and not something you think you need to get ahead.