Have you looking into programming classes to be on the software engineering side of the industry? It might be a quick way to get you trained on a desirable skill set or software and get you a job that can help support you through school to finish a Bachelors of Science in an engineering field of your choice. Associate in Science degrees are terminal and don't transfer well, if at all, to the Bachelors of Science program for engineering fields. If you're looking to minimize cost and get you into a better paying job so you can support the pursuit of a BS degree, then I would strongly consider utilizing an AA (Associate of Arts) program that helps you get your prerequisite core science classes out of the way at local community college and that will allow you to transfer directly into a bachelors program at a state university. It's important to look at the 4-5 year bachelors programs as well, because they could structure their core engineering track over a 3-year period, so you would want to transfer their as soon as possible to avoid delaying your graduation.

I went to trade school for mechanical design and worked for six years, starting out as a CAD tech and resigning as a senior mechanical designer. I resigned because I hit a glass ceiling regarding pay and levels of responsibility and wanted to challenge myself to become an engineer. It took personal savings, taking out government loans (not private), help from family friends, and five years of schooling to finish a BS in chemical engineering. I tried taking some college classes while I was working, but I didn't have a plan and wasn't personally motivated with a particular goal in mind. Also, I found that working CAD for 8-10 hours a day was mentally draining for me so it was difficult to concentrate and study after work.

The AS degrees (drafting and CAD) will help you a little bit with design engineering and is attractive to employers, but for the most part will be completely useless in the pursuit of a bachelors in engineering. Aside from using some of my AutoCAD knowledge to help with a couple of labs while I was in school, I pretty much never used CAD again. I ended up using specialized chemical engineering software, so the most important ability is to be able to pick up and utilize the various software you will encounter and not to be hard set on learning a particular CAD software as the only thing you'll ever need. When you're studying engineering and depending on your major you typically take one or two courses on a CAD/design software and are left to figure out all the other engineering software in the classes that require them (statistical software, programming languages, and design software).

The pursuit of the AS degree will allow you to get a job, but how much more will it pay than your current job and are local businesses in your area or the area of your future university hiring those types of AS students? Figure out what your end goal is regarding an engineering discipline and then figure out the fastest way to get there without going into astronomical debt. The sooner you start working as a degreed engineer, the sooner you get on track to paying off any loans, and enjoying the other benefits of a higher paying salary. I wish I had an older mentor that pushed me to go straight into university for engineering when I was fresh out of high school. It would have saved me a lot of time on my engineering and salary track later on in life.