A lot of these responses are a bit silly. Many of them saying to avoid private colleges as though they will fuck you over in the end. Private colleges are a good choice if you plan on having big goals. If your goal is simply to get into the animation business, go to college and get your degree. They will look for that. Many companies will NOT allow you to intern for them until your 3rd year in college and they WILL make sure you are enrolled. One of these comments recommends avoid college altogether because you can teach yourself. Yes, you can teach yourself. No, you should not avoid college. The way into the animation business is basically, you have to get an internship. It's literally a requirement at this point.
So some of these people saying Private colleges are a big scam... Disney pulls interns straight out of Cal Arts, a private college. Not to mention big names will sit in on your final animation you make at the end. Big names could potentially be witnessing your animation and thinking "I want this guy to work under me." Congratulations. You're set for life.
There are many things you should know that are often assumes you would already know going in. Have a sketchbook. I'm not talking about doodles or poopy drawings you came up with on the spot. I'm talking about a sketchbook full of work you are proud of. I can not stress this enough, go to figure drawing workshops and take the figure drawing classes. They desperately want to see these drawings. It's a clear indication of mastery as a lot of jobs in the industry are just being able to draw, and if they see you can draw well they assume you can animate well as it's just the same pose redrawn over a series of frames. Other things to include in a sketchbook include: Life drawings, storyboards, and character concepts. Get creative but know these are generally what they want to see.
Something else they want to see is a portfolio. These are your best works. You get em together, roughly 10-15 drawings you consider your greatest works, and submit them to wherever you might need to.
One more thing I cannot stress enough. Animate before you decide you want to commit to animation. This way you'll know for sure if this is the right path. I once did a 24 hour animation contest, so imagine sitting there for 24 hours with no sleep redrawing the same images over and over and over and over. If you can come out of that, and your first thought is "this is what I want to do for a living" you should be an animator.
One last thing, animation industries also look for story board artists and character concept artists and a bunch of other jobs that aren't specifically stated. If you like making comics, storyboards are for you. If you like making wacky characters in different shapes and sizes, try character concepts.
Hope this was helpful.