Yes and no. I could do an online degree, but not for anything I’d be interested in going back to school for (at least nothing terribly useful). I’ve actually been surprised at some of the online offerings. There’s a decent state school near me, one I’ve considered going to if I could ever magically figure it out, but the online offerings are not great, mostly consisting of the typical degrees described as “useless” along with some seemingly made up programs. Another, at an even better school offers a variety of degrees, but most of them are BA’s described as being mostly for things like pre-law. Even the few interesting or useful degrees they offered online had a note indicating that it was probably better to complete a number of the courses in person.

Also I don’t see an online program providing me any of the things I want to get out of university. Sure I could use them to get “a degree”, but that’s not particularly what I’m interested in. Most online and non traditional programs seem to exist solely for economic mobility, I.e. someone in a dead end job wants to get some degree that might lead to some sort of career, and that’s not the position I find myself in right now.

I’ve been researching this for years, I actually hoped to be getting back to school this year, but after a layoff and a year of not being able to get high paid work, it’s just probably not going to happen. Tuition isn’t actually that bad in-state where I live now, but what is expensive is the cost of living, particularly when a bulk of full time work needs to be performed at the same time as classes run.

Prior to my current predicament, the plan was to do the first two years online through a community college, transfer to the school I was targeting through the state guarantee programs, and then hopefully have saved up enough money to weather the rest of an undergrad degree.