Hi everyone!
I have an A.S. in Math and am deciding where to go next year. I currently work full time and would like to continue doing so, so I’m looking into a few distance education programs in Math. They are: Thomas Edison State University, Indiana University, and the University of Illinois at Springfield.
Tuition is a big deal for me since I don’t qualify for financial aid (my parents make too much money but won’t fund my education, so I have been funding on my own and I’m only 21, so I don’t qualify for independent status). However, I have saved up quite a bit to put me through school, so I guess my budget is around $9,000-$10,000 a year for tuition. I suppose I can become part time but it would really be stretching it.
Ideally, I would like to go through Indiana University’s B.S. in Math because they offer courses all the time and the tuition is cheap even for an out of state student like me. Also, it’s a Bachelor’s of Science, not Arts, which is something that’s important to me. The only issue is I’m from New Jersey and I don’t plan on leaving. Does it look weird if I went to a community college for 2 years and then moved on to an out of state school so far away? I’ve heard good things about the program from people who live near there, but does the degree hold any weight back on the East coast? Am I better off just going to Montclair State University and becoming part time for work?
My career goals are to go to graduate school after I finish, either in Math or another analytical field. I’ve taken my GREs already and have a 167 Quant, 159 Verbal and 6 for my essay. Of course, other factors matter for graduate school, but now the clock is ticking because I don’t want to retake it and I only have 5 years because I feel like those scores can really help me considering my academic background won’t be the most prestigious. I’m not trying to get into an amazing grad program, just somewhere I can learn a lot and further my understanding.
Sorry for the insanely long post. I’m just so confused and it’s not like colleges like to answer questions about other colleges. Have a nice day! 
First of all, don’t rush your education because of the GRE scores. The GRE costs, what, $160? It’s the least important part of your application. Your undergraduate education costs thousands of more and has a far bigger impact on your future. If you got a 167 quant you can get at least as good a score again if you retake.
That said, what kind of graduate school you want (and really, what your end goal is*), that will influence what you should do for undergrad. Aspiring PhD students (aka, aspiring mathematical scholars and researchers) should really try to attend a brick-and-mortar university if they can. You need to cultivate relationships with professors so you can get good recommendation letters from them for graduate school (more important than the GRE), and you also should get involved in research at the undergrad level (although I have heard that this is less important for math students, especially pure math, than in other areas). So in that case, yes, attending Montclair State as a part-time student might be a better choice.
But if you wanted to go to work straight after college, then an online program could potentially be okay, and in that case it doesn’t matter whether you go to Indiana or Thomas Edison. In fact, I would say Indiana might have a better rep in NJ than TESU. Indiana’s degree completion program in math looks pretty solid. And tuition is dirt cheap - at $303 a credit, and you only need 45 credits to finish the BS in math, the total cost comes out to $13,635.
It shouldn’t be - BS vs. BA doesn’t matter. What matters are the classes you take.
*Remember that graduate school is not really an end goal in and of itself. It’s an intermediate stop on the way to an end goal. You get a graduate degree because you need it to do something - teach math on the college level, or be a financier at a bank, or do mathematical analysis for the IMF or whatever you want to do. Grad school shouldn’t be the end, it’s the means to an end.
What do you want to do with your degree in math?
If you’re really serious about it, (I’m assuming a very high GPA since you aim for grad school) you should try to get into Columbia GS, which is designed for students like you, whose education was 'interrupted ’ because they had to work at least part time after high school. The issue indeed is that grad schools in math are a bit snobbish. They prefer students who have attended programs they know and worked with actual mathematicians.
If you’re aiming for grad school to become a math teacher, of which there’s a huge need, the strategy can be different, but if you’re going for straight up math grades school to do math (pure or applied) research, neither Edison nor Montclair will cut it. Columbia gs will.
For actuarial math the situation 's not so drastic but there are fewer programs than for secondary education.
First, there’s a very (very) slim chance that you could declare yourself independent for FAFSA purposes. .8% do this each year because of “unusual circumstances” that they discuss with the college or university. It may be that your parents need to write a letter stating that they no longer support you and refuse to do so. If they do support you, then this is not applicable. I know that some schools will work with students that have recalcitrant parents who refuse to support them and the school will not include their income in the FAFSA.
Second, I agree with the above comments that if your intent is to go into a Ph.D. program, you will benefit greatly from a mentor and research opportunities in the undergraduate years. Remember, from outside of colleges, they look like silos. From inside a particular field, it’s a small field and professors know who their colleagues are and what they’re studying regardless of the institution they are in. It’s a small pool of people. A mentor can help you enter that pool. While the above comment about Columbia GS is not incorrect, my opinion is that Columbia may be too large of an institution with too much competition for you to develop a meaningful relationship with a professor and to produce work with him or her in a two-year time frame. CGS is definitely an option, but you would need to figure that out ahead of time esp as it’s an expensive program. If you were my child I would suggest, for any possible college, including LACs that give decent financial aid (perhaps Grinnell, Vassar, Colby, Haverford/ Bryn Mawr/ Swarthmore, maybe Knox and Earlham), looking through the list of faculty in math and related fields to see if there’s someone who is doing work that interests you and who is active. Again don’t rule out the LACs as the competition for faculty positions is really tough and many amazing faculty are in places you may not expect, like CUNY and teensy LACs. Also LACs need boys and I get the impression that you’re male. They may be more generous or helpful with financial aid. The point is to find a mentor for your work in a school that you can either afford or that provides amazing financial aid. Mentors help you produce work that will interest graduate schools. That plus grades plus GRE scores = your best bet for grad school. If you’re in the NYC area (or even if you’re not) you may want to look into the CUNY Macaulay Honors Program as a transfer. They provide room, board, tuition, etc, but you may need FAFSA for that. In any event, CUNYs are cheap and have some great professors (as it’s in a desirable city and faculty positions are few and far between and many students at CUNY go there for the value, stating that they are going to spend their money on grad school) and many students have gone on to very fine graduate programs at top schools (Harvard, etc), many have won Fulbright fellowships and the like. The trick imo is to find that mentor . . .
Thank you for your thoughtful answer! I am actually a female, though
Do you feel that it’s not possible to have a mentor through my community college? All of my math professors have had PhDs from schools like Harvard, Princeton, etc…and many of them teach at the flagship school in my state (Rutgers - New Brunswick). Rutgers is too far for me to commute frequently, but would it be possible to ask if one of them would want to be my mentor?
@MYOS1634 I have a 3.9 at the moment, but I’m not sure how graduate programs view community college program GPAs.
I suppose I’m not so sure what I want my degree in as much as I do know I want it to be analytical. This could be business intelligence, data analytics, quantitative finance, etc… does anyone know anything about those programs?
And yes, @julliet – you are correct. Graduate school is by no means my “career” goal, that was misstated.
Thank you everyone for your answers, I really appreciate all of the wonderful insight.