I am in a quandary. During the past year, I have earned 21 credit hours toward's an Associate's Degree in Information Technology via an online course offered by my local community college. My goal is to make myself more marketable while pursuing employment in the Software Application Development field. I have become disillusioned with the pursuit of this degree.

I am 46 years old and have had my own business for the past 12 years providing software support and training to users of an accounting package that tailors to the property management industry. I have either studied or worked in the computer industry since 1984. I have been using VFP since version 3.0 and have developed one custom application for a local client, and have developed a few other minor projects.

Having my VFP experience, and having taken a couple of programming classes (C++ and VB.NET), I know I want to pursue employment as a software developer. I am considering two avenues - one is to continue with my degree, but change to ITT-Tech here in my city, or pursue study that would prepare me for Microsoft Certifications in the languages of Visual Studio, maybe through a company like New Horizons.

I want to know how my experience plus the proper Microsoft Certifications would stack up against a formal degree when seeking employment as a software developer. And, if the answer is a degree, does it need to be a B.A. or will an A.A.S be suffficient with my experience? What's your opinion of ITT-Tech? Have they gained a good reputation in the tech industry.

I'm just looking for input. Thank you for any opinions.

Sincerely,