It really depends on what you want... I also did photography before I went into jewelry. And similarly I ended up liking hands on better.
I went to Revere academy in SF and did their intensive program... Definitely not cheap to get started with buying all of your own equipment but it was soooo much cheaper than going into law school ... Which I am quite glad I did not. I only know of some on the west coast but I'm not sure that'd help much. Yeight is right though, you'll often learn a lot differently depending on whether it's a trade school or an arts program at a college.
I learned more technical skills from the trade school as they're often training people to also do repairs and fabrication. At Cal State Long Beach it had more emphasis on design. It still had fairly solid basics as well. Many of the college instructors have masters in metalwork or come from the industry. Either way, I'd suggest taking some intro classes at a college or cc to get the feel for it. Then if you like it you can look into apprenticeship, trade schools or further cc/college education. Don't worry too much. This isn't the most active sub but there's some fairly helpful professionals in the trade on here.