[bitbasher]

I don't want to sound negative, but why do you want to go back to school? Is this about changing career paths?

If you're already working in software development and you plan on continuing that, then I don't think the net benefits would outweigh the negatives you outlined (high cost, possibly leaving job to have the time to commit in person).

I think a better approach may be the online classes and/or self studying (computer architecture, etc). You can always follow multiple universities syllabi and do it yourself.

[hndecision1234]

It's less about changing career paths, since I can always learn EE on my own, but I've always wanted to have a degree for more opportunities.

[dangus]

Can you quantify what opportunities you're missing? Or is it just a feeling or that you don't know what you're missing?

You've already got 8 years experience under your belt. I can't imagine there are many opportunities in your field that you can't get just because of a degree. I don't think any employers are going to care that you don't have a degree.

From what you've said, it sounds like you just want the degree to help you with the automated job application systems that will just auto-reject you for not having a degree. In that case, you just need something that's cheap/free and gives you pretty much any degree without much life disruption/quickly.

This story of mine might help you: I used to work in an organization where there was a Master's degree requirement for manager roles. When people would retire the managers basically picked out their favorites for who they wanted to be promoted. So, the person basically knew they were going to be promoted and all they needed was the piece of paper.

People around the office discovered Western Governor's University (WGU dot edu). It's an accredited university where tuition is paid in 6 month terms and work is done on your own schedule. You can complete as much work as you want during that term. Also, exam schedules are completely up to you.

So, my coworkers were basically taking Master's degree programs in areas where they had already been working in the industry for many years. They were finishing degree programs within that first 6 months just so they could be eligible by organization rules for the promotion they were already being shoehorned into.

I am not endorsing the school or anything but this general idea seems to make sense for your situation. It sounded like it was the kind of thing where you could basically test out of a lot of the time committment of traditional university if you already had a lot of knowledge and/or have the ability to work quickly with independent study.

Alternatively, there are some free/open universities out there that are essentially MOOCs with an option to get real course credit and degrees. I think some European colleges offer that option, like University of Helsinki.