I've been self taught primarily in the computer networking space for a little over 10 years coming straight out of high school and I'd really really like to get more formal knowledge inside the CS field, both out of general interest but also to match the increasing scope of what I work with, but I've never been sure how to go about getting started mid career. Further education was never really something I planned for when I was younger and I barely even made it out with a high school diploma because I didn't value trying to chase education as much as I just enjoyed tinkering with computers. I was lucky to have an in to an internship via a high school robotics mentor to get my career started and now I'm in a principal role still on the upward portion of my career while also traveling a significant amount and working an irregular schedule so I'm not sure what education path is actually a worthwhile yet flexible enough. Do I just start looking up random universities with online courses? Is that even going to give me what I want or am I just going to end up qualifying for an official piece of paper instead of actually getting a useful amount of new knowledge? Do I have enough time to actually get a useful amount of new knowledge on the side?

So I haven't yet pursued a CS degree but whenever I hear of a story like yours it becomes more nagging in the back of my mind.