re: Online College for a Degree in Game and Art Design

That's true. Just think about some of the community game mods that are extremely well done, took tons of time, artistic talent, and programming knowledge/skill. And they did it for the hell of it, to give it away for free and hope for donations. Some of these actually do get hired on as game developers, and it sure as hell wasn't because of a degree, if they even have a degree at all.