Penn State is around 16k/yr, 7-8k per semester taking 12-15 credits. That is without anything, no housing, food, anything like that. I graduated 2007, if you want to put yourself into debt for the next decade have a go at it. I wanted to drop out after 1 year and start trading, stuck it out and got my degree, don't regret it at all. At 24, living with your parents and no bills, I'd say give trading a go and forget school. It took 1 year full time to become profitable. I work nights to keep my account growing and look at my trading now as my retirement fund pretty much Once my account reaches a certain level, I will "retire" and manage my portfolio. My advice would be to go Prop and learn from a very experienced trader. Be willing to pay a little for a good education, either way the market will charge you it's own tuition. Don't be a cowboy, trade small, put in your time at your screen 7 hours a day during market hours and 4 or 5 outside and on weekends. Treat trading as you would a top notch education. Do homework, keep a journal, learn from your mistakes, read as much as you can, and start from the bottom. Learn market mechanics, what makes markets move, how are they interrelated, how do exchanges work, what do fair value, tick, premium, $VIX, TRIN, TNX, just to name a few have to do with anything? Judging by your posts OP you have a long road ahead of you... an education doesn't have to be from an institution of higher learning to be valuable... good luck.
Your best bet is to go to a community college and get a 2-year degree. Most community colleges are pretty cheap and they offer fully accredited online courses, so you can still work and trade part-time. Once you have the associates, and you know for what you want to do with your life, you can always transfer to a four year state college. I would recommend a smaller state college over your state's flagship university. It's much cheaper and the quality of education is basically the same, except they have no over-paid football coaches and ridiculous rock climbing walls. Nobody really gives a shit where you got your undergrad degree anymore unless you went to an Ivy League school. A good grad school is more important. A friend of mine actually has a bachelors in IT from Devry and was just accepted to Purdue's graduate school of engineering.
http://tuition.psu.edu/Rates2008-09/UniversityPark.asp 12+ credits is fulltime, so not capped at 15 creds.
up until the last few months, the unemployment rate among all engineers was in the order of 3% http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08305/
forex, you hit the nail on the head. top honors in undergrad at smaller public institution is a cheap ticket into a quality gradschool. contro, i would challenge you to come up with multiple game plans for the next six years. how many feasible roadmaps can you come up with by the time you hit the big 30??? think about it, your 24 now, six years at 5k a year could position you with a fully funded 30k account to day trade until your little heart is content...
If you're gonna do the whole college thing and then grad school, please for god's sake get into the medical field. Why anyone would ever spend so much time majoring in bullshit such as finance or getting an MBA is beyond me. Become a dentist in 6 years instead. Other options: Physical assistant, nurse, etc etc. All can be done within 6 years, which is the amount of time it would take to get a bachelors + MBA. Do something real. You don't need college to learn some shit that you can google and teach yourself. And if you wanna do the trading thing, go for it. Just dive in. You have one life to live. Who cares. Just learn to get back up if you go broke.
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=162253 You are 'Guru Ripe' though so maybe expect a visit? You walked into the Wolf infested,deep,dark forest and didn't even realise it.Good luck.Bad statitics.
I find that very hard to believe, but hey, can't argue with government statistics, can we? Guess the answer for all the unemployed is go get an engineering degree and we will be at full employment.
You need to take the standardized entrance exams and any quality grad school prefers that you have 1-2 years of good work experience.