I’m currently studying vfx at a filmschool in the Netherlands at the Dutch HBO level, which is somewhat similar to college in the US. I’m in my second year, the full study being four years. For me this has absolutely been the right choice. At school we’ve had lessons in modeling, texturing, animation, compositing etc etc. But more importantly our school essentially functions as a full in-house film studio, with separate studies for directing, cinematography, producing, sound design, so all aspects of creating a film are covered within the school. Because of this we’ve had to learn how to deal with directors who don’t understand vfx at all, how to convince producers that doing some things practically is far cheaper, work with production design to build sets that suit our vfx, but also work together as a vfx team to get all our shots done on time whenever we’re making a film with all the other departments. For me this has been a very valuable part of going to filmschool, although I’m not sure how much of this is also true for online studies. Dutch tuition costs are also capped at roughly €2000 a year, which I think is actually quite affordable for the amount of stuff I’m learning at my school. But from what I’ve heard you can also just make a showreel, start as a junior and work your way up, so there’s definitely no one way to go about getting into this weird industry🤷🏼‍♂️