I got two of my degrees in person (BS and AA in data process), but am getting my MS degree now from a local college that offers most of its classes online. As long as you pick a college that is well-known, you'll be ok with a degree from them. But don't pick one of the "on-line only college programs", they are considered a joke.
What are the hottest jobs in IT? Not programming right now, since those jobs are being outsourced. But lots of baby boomers are retiring, and people are scared off from IT, so we're going to have a huge IT need in the next few years, since IT college programs are at very low enrollments right now.
According to the US Dept of Labor, these are the some of the fastest growing occupations for 2004-2014 (they usually require a bachelors degree and usually make over $43,000):
1) Computer scientists and network systems and data communications analysts (its hard to outsource figuring out your local network configuration)
2) Computer software engineers, applications
3) Computer software engineers, systems software (people making the software that runs the programs, that run financial programs)
4) Network and computer systems administrators (Folks in charge of the network analysts and techs)
5) Computer scientists and database administrators (database folks will always get the top jobs, it's difficult work)
6) Computer systems analysts
Here's the link to the descriptions of the jobs:
http://www.bls.gov/oco/oco1002.htm Good luck!