If you need to take a loan to invest in yourself, just like you would be doing if you purchased a house, it is a sensible investment to make. I am not sure why your online courses would cost more than the in person ones from the same college? Your answer might be that you then need to take out an additional loan to cover the extra cost if this is what you want for your career or maybe you need to ask favors from relatives? What you spend on your career (time and money) should be viewed from an investment perspective and not from a consumer one. On a side note, where there is a will there is a way. In a nutshell, the certificate along with relevant work experience would make more of an impact on me hiring you as a civil engineering manager or supervisor. If it comes between working in the field or getting your associate's, I would say to choose the job first unless that job has nothing to do with CAD work (you never said what your current job was?). So my advice to you would be for you to continue building your professional work resume at all costs. If I were to hire a CAD technician to work for me, I would be more interested in his work experience, references and any examples of his body of work than I would be if he had an associate's degree or not. To qualify myself, I am not a CAD professional but I am a practicing civil engineer.

I find some of the responses from actual drafters advising you to get the associate's degree at all costs interesting.

Cad certificate online