Am I Taking On Too Much?

Today I send in my transcripts to apply for college through the University of the People. It is a bachelors degree in computer science. This is big for me, since I quit school after my junior year to get married, basically we were both running away from home.

Two years into the marriage,when I realized where things were headed, I got my GED and did some remedial work in algebra at a local community college. I later took some classes in programming and in database management, but I had limited time and money.

So now my packet goes off. This is a tuition-free school. You pay only for taking a test at the end of each course. That translates into a cost of about $4000 for the entire program. There are no book or software costs, all is open-source.

I am worried about the math, but honestly, I am pretty bright and I am sure that I can put my mind to it and deal with it.

I gave up the idea of college when I started comparing the costs of school against the amount of earning potential that I have left in my life. I am 49. Traditional and online school in this field would cost me over $40,000 for the same degree.

I like the idea of learning this way. I am excited and scared. More excited than scared. I got my high school transcript and I wanted to look at it to see how (bad) I did. But it had to remain sealed. Maybe it's best forgotten. My mind wasn't really there, back then.

I found out about this school via a TED Talk, which can be found here.