And personally I’d stay away from online schools unless they are universities offering online classes (such as Penn State or U of MD). I think U of Phoenix has gotten a bad wrap but there is nothing you can do about that and I worry about people with those degrees right now.

While it works well for some people, in my experience, whenever someone says “I have two kids to take care of…” as being their reason for taking online classes I find that the person really doesn’t have time in a day to do the work of the online class.

Keep in mind that online classes are very writing based and you will have to spend as much time or more working on the online class as you would in a classroom class. It’s just that the timing is more flexible.

That said: For financial aid, you simply have your FAFSA sent to the school that you’re planning to attend (online or otherwise) and you can do this online on the FAFSA web page. You’ll need to know the school code of the school you want to attend.

To pick a school, you do that the same way you pick any school (online or not). Almost all state universities now have classes online and many offer their whole degree that way. The options are immense – it’s way more than just the schools you see on TV.

In order to get suggestions of schools, we’d need to know what level of schools (technical, associates, bachelor’s, master’s) and what sort of major you intend. I’d certainly start with your state university system and the local community college system to see what they have online – it will be the least expensive option.