im a designer and for what its worth i say to teach yourself fuck an art school... instead of spending 20k for some washed up schmuck to teach you outdated techniques at a school go to seminars. read books on things like preflight,layout,offsetting,trapping,html etc. after all that boring shit(and trust me its boring) if you still want to be a designer then learn the programs... being a graphic artist unfortunately isn't just drawing pretty pictures....
thats what i did and i am a graphic designer who is lucky enough to have a job in graphics like someone before said this market is filled with people (especially middle aged women) who assume there graphic artist because they know how to draw a fucking picture in microsoft paint . dont be that person unless you want to work at fucking kinkos for the rest of your life..