[freaky_beeky]

I think you've really got to work out what you want to get out of this. If you already know then that's great, it just doesn't come across that way.

From what I understand, the main reason you want a degree is because you want to be able to use the fact that you’ve got a degree to potentially get into another degree later.

So upon completion of your degree you either use that to apply for jobs, or you use it to get into another degree. As you’ve just started a new family (congratulations btw) and are talking about increasing your hours for further support, I’m going to assume you’re going to be the main source of income. Given this assumption I expect that when you complete your degree you’re going to use it rather than study again for a few more years.

If this is the case, the question comes down to what do you actually want to achieve?

For Example:

If becoming a programmer/developer like you suggest in your OP
What type of development did you want to go into?
Web
Mobile
Desktop Applications
Windows/*nix

Building Degree for Management Business
Industry?
Project Manager?
Operations Manger?

If you don’t want to do these types of jobs and would prefer to do some more client focused roles I would suggest that you’re going about it the wrong way and should be taking the advice of Zepph and going and doing a TAFE cert to build your basic knowledge or applying for a traineeship or similar “on the job” training to consolidate both your study and work. If you still want to go back and do a degree there is nothing stopping you from applying as a mature age student and with some funding behind your back I have very little doubt that you would be disallowed acceptance into any of the degree’s you’ve mentioned.

As a final note I’d also like to throw on a +1 to the experience trumps qualifications in I.T very quickly that both kip and Zepph mentioned. Soon your degree and qualifications will be replaced by completed projects and experience (again with the exception of early-mid stages of programming).

EDIT: Having just read Halstrom's post (a very fine post it is indeed) I would like to put my support behind everything he states there. However I would add the following warning; As a general rule DBA's are weird, but Oracle DBA's are a whole weird unto themselves, if you choose that path there is no helping you.

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Sola:

Cheers