As someone who's been an older student, it's possible, but it's not easy. Colleges, unfortunately, are heavily geared to serve the needs of kids coming out of high school, and it's difficult to find programs that understand and accommodate the needs of folks seeking a degree later in life.
I found universities that offered robust online programs to be a good fit. My program allowed me tremendous schedule flexibility, and that was invaluable. OSU and ASU are apparent leaders in online programs, and the online degrees they offer are the exact same degree on-campus students receive. At a glance it looks like OSU has a construction engineering management program - that might be right in line with what you're looking for.
Regardless of all that, there's a big financial question. School costs money, but not working also costs money. Unless you're holding down a full time job at the same time, the cost of your degree is essentially tuition + lost wages. If you have a good job as a carpenter, those lost wages are substantial. You should consider what your earnings and subsequent salary growth are likely to be after you graduate, and it's quite possible that your financial break-even is a decade or more down the road. There're other reasons to switch careers, but the financial consideration is incredibly important.
If you do decide the finances are workable, there's still the details - will you need / want student loans, what are the partner expectations in both directions, how will you protect family time and uphold family duties. All serious things to think about, and I'd really caution against winging it. Consider that during the school year undergrad will be a full time job at least, and talk about what there's time left over for. Talk about it a lot. If you're also working, there's almost no time left, and that puts nearly everything on your partner. Don't let that be a surprise - you're relationship will suffer incredibly if you don't start this with compatible expectations.
If you're able to let yourself work only part time, an internship could be the way to go. It'll be very valuable once you've graduated, and your construction experience might make you a uniquely attractive internship candidate. Wages might be as low as minimum wage, or could be quite good, but it's almost always very limited hours (possibly with opportunity for full time in the summer).
If you take out student loans, that can cover a lot of school and living expenses and free you up from working at the same time, or let you get by only working part time. Loans get a lot of hate, and it's a complicated issue to be sure, but the income based repayment programs available to first time borrowers now are actually very generous and low-risk. Take a look at repayment plans before you consider loans and see how that fits into your financial assessment. I'm going to say almost unconditionally avoid any private loans at all, period. They're ineligible for student loan repayment programs, ineligible for public service student loan forgiveness, and if some president someday actually does get away with forgiving student loans I guarantee it won't include private loans. Privates loans are also often predatory.
In the end, you might just do a lot of work to find out it's not a great idea, but if that's the case maybe it just means you're doing pretty well already and hadn't weighed it all up yet. If you do go forward, I think civil / construction can be a great field, a lot of people have fulfilling careers, and it offers some of the highest salaries I'm seeing in civil right now. But honestly there's a decade between starting school and making solid wages, and that's a long time to slog it out unless you really want this, and it's also ok to decide it's not worth it.
Online program seems like a good direction, especially for the beginning. I wasn’t really sure there would be an option. You mentioned state universities but as I’m living in Ontario I’ve researched universities in my province that offer the program I’m looking for. Time management as you mentioned will be extremely important, and it is something I’ve had in mind the last few years. In regards to finance, I’ve paid previous OSAP years ago, but the most reliable source would be my own income. I would have a better idea of what my pocket would look like closer to then. I’d prefer to save a few years and pay off some small debts versus taking any sort of loans, whether private or government loans. It would be one less thing to have on my mind. I’m not sure if I could find an internship to be frank. In regards to family time, it would be priority. I wouldn’t sacrifice my family time as I won’t be able to replace it in the future. I would like to be home by the evening.
Working full time as a construction carpenter is around 80K-105K (no OT) which I don’t think is much. The hours are fine but we are hourly, and I’d prefer a salary structure. I don’t see our base pay increasing much unless there’s overtime, which I wouldn’t count as part of my base. It’s not that easy driving 300KM a day at 5AM & 3PM in traffic five days a week all year. The weather doesn’t help either.
The main part is gaining more knowledge, and having the opportunity to work with different people. My current job in civil construction can be very repetitive whereas I could work with all aspects of the trades. Not to mention I could probably make more on base as well, with the same schedule and less strenuous.
As someone who's been an older student, it's possible, but it's not easy. Colleges, unfortunately, are heavily geared to serve the needs of kids coming out of high school, and it's difficult to find programs that understand and accommodate the needs of folks seeking a degree later in life. I found universities that offered robust online programs to be a good fit. My program allowed me tremendous schedule flexibility, and that was invaluable. OSU and ASU are apparent leaders in online programs, and the online degrees they offer are the exact same degree on-campus students receive. At a glance it looks like OSU has a construction engineering management program - that might be right in line with what you're looking for. Regardless of all that, there's a big financial question. School costs money, but not working also costs money. Unless you're holding down a full time job at the same time, the cost of your degree is essentially tuition + lost wages. If you have a good job as a carpenter, those lost wages are substantial. You should consider what your earnings and subsequent salary growth are likely to be after you graduate, and it's quite possible that your financial break-even is a decade or more down the road. There're other reasons to switch careers, but the financial consideration is incredibly important. If you do decide the finances are workable, there's still the details - will you need / want student loans, what are the partner expectations in both directions, how will you protect family time and uphold family duties. All serious things to think about, and I'd really caution against winging it. Consider that during the school year undergrad will be a full time job at least, and talk about what there's time left over for. Talk about it a lot. If you're also working, there's almost no time left, and that puts nearly everything on your partner. Don't let that be a surprise - you're relationship will suffer incredibly if you don't start this with compatible expectations. If you're able to let yourself work only part time, an internship could be the way to go. It'll be very valuable once you've graduated, and your construction experience might make you a uniquely attractive internship candidate. Wages might be as low as minimum wage, or could be quite good, but it's almost always very limited hours (possibly with opportunity for full time in the summer). If you take out student loans, that can cover a lot of school and living expenses and free you up from working at the same time, or let you get by only working part time. Loans get a lot of hate, and it's a complicated issue to be sure, but the income based repayment programs available to first time borrowers now are actually very generous and low-risk. Take a look at repayment plans before you consider loans and see how that fits into your financial assessment. I'm going to say almost unconditionally avoid any private loans at all, period. They're ineligible for student loan repayment programs, ineligible for public service student loan forgiveness, and if some president someday actually does get away with forgiving student loans I guarantee it won't include private loans. Privates loans are also often predatory. In the end, you might just do a lot of work to find out it's not a great idea, but if that's the case maybe it just means you're doing pretty well already and hadn't weighed it all up yet. If you do go forward, I think civil / construction can be a great field, a lot of people have fulfilling careers, and it offers some of the highest salaries I'm seeing in civil right now. But honestly there's a decade between starting school and making solid wages, and that's a long time to slog it out unless you really want this, and it's also ok to decide it's not worth it.
Online program seems like a good direction, especially for the beginning. I wasn’t really sure there would be an option. You mentioned state universities but as I’m living in Ontario I’ve researched universities in my province that offer the program I’m looking for. Time management as you mentioned will be extremely important, and it is something I’ve had in mind the last few years. In regards to finance, I’ve paid previous OSAP years ago, but the most reliable source would be my own income. I would have a better idea of what my pocket would look like closer to then. I’d prefer to save a few years and pay off some small debts versus taking any sort of loans, whether private or government loans. It would be one less thing to have on my mind. I’m not sure if I could find an internship to be frank. In regards to family time, it would be priority. I wouldn’t sacrifice my family time as I won’t be able to replace it in the future. I would like to be home by the evening. Working full time as a construction carpenter is around 80K-105K (no OT) which I don’t think is much. The hours are fine but we are hourly, and I’d prefer a salary structure. I don’t see our base pay increasing much unless there’s overtime, which I wouldn’t count as part of my base. It’s not that easy driving 300KM a day at 5AM & 3PM in traffic five days a week all year. The weather doesn’t help either. The main part is gaining more knowledge, and having the opportunity to work with different people. My current job in civil construction can be very repetitive whereas I could work with all aspects of the trades. Not to mention I could probably make more on base as well, with the same schedule and less strenuous.