Time value of money is a serious issue. There's a nice private engineering-focused school near me that costs $5424 for 8 credits per semester as a "part timer"

Time value of money is a serious issue. There's a nice private engineering-focused school near me that costs $5424 for 8 credits per semester as a "part timer" or $13013 for 12 or more credits per semester. So 50% more credits graduates you 50% sooner but costs a mere 139% more money. Of course you need to factor in the cost of living to come up with a total cost of taking 8 years vs 4 years. The math can get extremely weird if you can do scholarships; you might run a moderately large net profit if you join the military in a support role (commo tech?) and take some classes during your enlistment and some CLEP tests, then collect the GI Bill afterward leaving the military while in school if you have some financial self discipline. Or a ROTC scholarship, etc. Reserves will get you less money but go quicker. National Guard service, depending on state, may result in $0 tuition at a state school. I would recommend against ROTC scholarship in that the military will assign your branch based on stack ranking GPA, and engineering school GPAs tend to be pretty low compared to anything else, not that there's anything inherently wrong with chem corps or air defense. Also officer life is management not technical so if you have an EE degree you're unlikely to get branched commo or cyber you're statistically more likely to manage 50 truck drivers because in the military management is interchangeable cogs. Still, if you're willing to do work unrelated to EE for a couple years the military would provide a negative cost AKA net profit if you want a "cheap degree".