I've been looking at the cost for some of these game specific courses and the prices seem really high! Do you guys think it is worth it or would you recommend teaching yourself online and saving money?

I've seen a lot of tutorials for programming and 3D modeling online and I think that I've heard that the only thing game schools really provide is a schedule structure to help motivate you. What do you think?

I went through Full Sail's bachelor degree for game development and it was a great experience. The most important thing you learn in that degree is the group project experience of working as part of a team and meeting deadlines. You also learn in depth about design-patterns, development cycles, and good coding practices.

The big difference between a game school and just self tutorial is that you always have help to contact when you get stuck on something. If you hit a roadblock while working at home than there is a good chance you just might give up, whereas at Full Sail for example, you can just raise your hand and call a lab tech over and they knew what to do to put you back on track. Its a huge help to have assistance that close in hand.

I can't vouch for other schools but Full Sail was an invaluable experience for me.

I too searched for a long while to gain a higher education. I enrolled at the Game Institute and found it to be very flexible, in fact too flexible. I learned the basic fundamentals of C++ but there were times when I would get stuck and would have to wait on a response to my help post within the forums. Sometimes this would take days. I agree with SWoskowiak when he says that there is nothing like a live Tech to lend a helping hand. It indeed keeps you on track.

As for the price, well you can not put a price on education. I currently am going to school full time as well as working full time. In the end it will all be worth it!

Keep you head up and don't hesitate to turn to your peers in a time of need!

As fun (and ego boosting) as it is to program on your own, in your basement, the thing that school teaches you the most (I think) is to program in a team environment. These days, all open source projects (that matter), as well as commercial software products (duh!), are written in group environments.

Well said Prototype...

Another aspect to look at about school is that it shows determination and perseverance. If you are able to juggle school along with work AND succeed at both, it shows a lot about your work ethic and who you are in terms of how you handle your work load.