Colleges Online Classes in Distance Education Degree Program

Alright, so, I know yahoo answers is the best place on earth to get advice, but I don’t really know how to get in contact with anyone who has any experience to offer advice.

I am a 23 year old college student, recently divorced. I am 7 classes away from the completion of my associates degree in Hospitality Management, I plan to get a BA in Hospitality Management, if possible. Currently I am about $10,500.00 in college debt, which isn’t that bad since I’m just two semesters away from completing my associates, my total debt at that time should be $13,500.00. I’m hoping to be able to finish with a BA about $30-$35k in debt, which is much less than most of my friends, I’d be happy with that.

My father is 49 years old, also recently divorced. He is the hardest working person I’ve ever met. He works about 60 hours a week between Wal Mart (Tire and Lube Express manager, making about $16/hr) and running his own plowing/odd jobs business. After child support and taxes he is clearing about $28,000 a year.

I have been doing a lot of research about the oil boom going on in North Dakota, being from Maine, it’s almost hard to imagine a need for workers as bad as they make it seem online. The jobs seem to pay a ridiculous amount of money for laborers. I have looked around at housing, it seems $4000/mo for a two bedroom is about the norm, which is pretty crazy, but I’m sure there are other ways to get by, including stay an hour or two away from Williston. I have been tossing around the idea of both my father and I going to get CDL class A licenses (maybe try to get Hazmat and Tanker endorsements as well.) and going to North Dakota for a few years. I would like to try and pay off what college debt I currently have, and save up a good amount of money for when I do graduate college, so that I can buy a house, etc. This seems like a lot of hard work, but worth it if I can go from working part time and going to college, making under $1000 a month, to making $3000-$4000/month. It would be good for my father as well, it could be his only chance to ever get anything, since his house was foreclosed on a few years ago his credit is terrible. But if he could save up 20-30k in a few years he could buy a piece of land and build his own house probably for around that and own it outright. Real estate is extremely cheap where we live.

The cost of a class A cdl is $3,450.00 at school nearby. The extra endorsements, tanker and hazmet cost $10 each to test on. So the total cost of $3,470.00 per person would be the cost.

So here is my list of questions,
1. Is this oil boom legit’ IE: do they make it sound like there are tons of jobs, but in reality I would be wasting my time or end up taking a job that pays $1500-$2000/mo which is not much more than I could get here if I wasn’t in college.
2. Is driving the best thing to get into out there’ Would it be easier to get into a job on the fields themselves’
3. Can an average person get a CDL license and be somewhat successful’ I’ve never really driven anything that big. I’ve driven a big U-Haul and nobody died, but I’m sure an 18-wheeler is a little different than that.
4. If you were in my situation what would you recommend’

My current GPA in college is 3.42

Let me know if I missed anything.
Thanks.