To self-educate or matriculate?

That was back in high school and the next year I was introduced to PASCAL and between my friends and I, we created a pretty good zork-like game during our class time after our official assignments were quickly finished. Each of my friends had the same post high school aspiration; to work in the gaming industry as a game designer and programmer. Today, not one of us has achieved that goal but I have every intention to carry through with that dream. Over the past few years I've purchased several books and studied them inside and out. My problem is that my free time is becoming increasingly more limited than I would like and I could never dedicate regularly scheduled blocks of time to stay current with what I had learned. I had no environment in which to utilize my knowledge. On top of that my current career simply pays far too much to swap career paths until my kids are in grade school and my wife returns to the workforce.

Because I'm pretty much locked into my current career path, I figured that it would be a great time to enroll in a more formalized setting in which to learn and apply the various aspects of game development and specifically programming. Because relocation to a college that offers such degree programs is not possible, there are two colleges that I am currently assessing:

Excelsior college offers online courses with the concentration classes being taken through the accreditted Game Institute. NEIT only offers a classroom seeting but is only approximately 30 minutes away and I can take evening and weekend classes. The advantage over Excelsior that I like the most is that if attending NEIT, I will be able to use their labs and have access not only to the experience of the professors but also that of the students.

Over the years, I've had many online discussions and read numerous blogs, forum posts, and articles regarding the viewpoint that it isn't necessary to attend college to get into the gaming industry and I tend to agree. Many recommend reading books and applying that knowledge in a stepped progression and that makes sense. Years ago, I took that advice but the problem is that there are so many books out there I feel as though I'm in the middle of the ocean with nothing in sight. I need structure. I've been swimming in that ocean for years now and have just been going in circles. I need a guiding light and I'm hedging my bets on a structured program to be that guiding light.

I have an appointment at NEIT next friday and I hope things go better than I expect.