I've known several people who successfully went the Community College route. It's a GREAT way to get started, in most cases you'll actually learn something, and it's comparatively cheap.
Something I've been very surprised about, at least in the CC systems in my area, is that most of the professors also teach at local 4-year universities, or are senior employees/contributors at major companies in the area. Very few of the professors I encountered were solely employed at the CC (mostly because the pay is terrible), but it meant that lots of outside talent came in to make the classes work.
I had far more terrible professors at the state school level than at CC. But I also had the best of the best there as well. So CC professors seem to come in somewhere in the middle in general -- very solid.
