Do you have a metal blade key or the smart key without a metal blade?

In either case, there is a real risk that the car will fail to restart so is is vital you do something soon. When this occurs, it will be a real problem to break the locking parts off to make repairs.

I doubt that the entire column needs replaced, do you have a detailed estimate that you can post?

If you have the smart key, I'd pull the lower dash covers and remove the electrical column locking device. This comes off my removing a 10 mm hex nut and pushing a bolt through the device. The bolt can only be pushed out when the column is unlocked. At least this way when the system goes 100 % fail you won't have to break things to make a repair.