Agreed. Some is better than none, and fugly code is better than no code. As long as you have a clear mention that you're working to improve the code's quality, most (competent) people should respect that.
This is a shameless self-plug, but it's relevant to tab hoarding. A while back I created a Chrome extension called Tab Flow to deal with my own troubles with this. Grab it from the Chrome store and feel free to hit me up with feedback/suggestions if you can think of a case it doesn't cover.
I've been wondering along the same lines, though my situation's a little different. I'm employed full time at a software company, and I'm about 70-80% of the way through my bachelor degree. I've discussed it with a couple of people in the company who are in higher positions than I am, and they've both said that it's good to have it, just for the sake of having it. Managers (or HR) use it as a checkbox - a quick way of filtering out applicants. I was told the following by my manager yesterday: "If I'm looking at you and someone with the same skills, but he has a bachelor degree, I'm going to hire him. He's proven that he can stick with it, and he gets the checkbox ticked."