Software dev as an industry tends to be bifurcated: startups and unicorns tend to be very anticredentialist, at least when it comes to formal education. They'd

Software dev as an industry tends to be bifurcated: startups and unicorns tend to be very anticredentialist, at least when it comes to formal education. They'd rather see X years at Y company than really care what school you went to or what degree you got, unless that's all you have to show. Unfortunately for you, this is slightly less true for Microsoft-centric development environments. Government and big business still value the degree a lot. Unless your A.S. or A.A. is in basket weaving, getting some kind of BSCS in five years of part-time distance ed would probably be both affordable and worthwhile.