Three years ago or so, I had a coversation over a few beers with a biggish-league studio owner and a couple of well-known audio engineers about breaking into the record-making business. I was (and remain) the low man on the totem pole here, having been a low-paid assistant on some high-budget sessions and a low-paid engineer on some low-budget sessions. This was after a conference.
The studio owner said something to the effect of, "You know who I would pay good money for? A licenced electrician with a music degree. The kids I get out of recording school are worse interns than the guys who are just playing in a band and want to learn about this stuff. The last thing I need is some kid who had to go to school to learn how to use a compressor who thinks he's too good to sweep floors and make coffee."
There was a general consensus that the knowledge required to make a good engineer was both more technical and more creative than you could learn in school. Every person at the table agreed that being willing to work for nothing or close to nothing had gotten them further than any level of "recording" education could get.
Making records is an apprenticeship art, kind of like being a blacksmith, or a glass-blower, or a cabinet-maker. There is nothing that you have to offer unless you can deliver the result that rich people or businesses want that they can't get from a department store. (I'm not speaking of you in particular, Phillip, just generally). Reputation counts a thousand times more than credentials do.
In the world of major-label record-making, someone with a "recording arts" degree is no more likely to be a producer than someone with a music degree is likely to get a record contract. I have never been what you would call a "player" in the record business, or anything close to it, but I've recorded and played on songs that you can still hear on the radio, if you listen to eclectic college stations and the like, and I've worked with and am friends with some people who are bona-fide rock stars, though not quite U2- or Madonna-level.
When I used to make my (pretty limited) living making records and making music, I worked with some people who had both recording degrees and excellent connections--i.e. brothers or uncles who were rock stars or label executives or whatever. Most of them worked under me, for less than 8 bucks an hour (I wasn't making much more).
The record-making business is a very ruthless, but also a very egailtarian one. Everybody wants in, and the only thing anyone cares about is hit records. Black, white, brown or plaid, it doesn't matter where you come from or who you are or what your so-called credentials mean, the only thing ANYBODY cares about, is can you make them a star. What is surprising is how much this is true not only of the mooks, but also of the artists. When it comes down to it, nobody really believes in talent anymore, and everyone thinks they have it anyway. The only thing people in the biz really care about is whether you have the VooDoo magic that turns songs into hits.
My advice would be to get a degree in computer science or electrical engineering or embedded systems engineering, with maybe a double-major in music. The only place you are likely to find a degree in recording is at a recording arts school, and most studios, for an entry-level position, are more concerned about your ability to keep track of lunch orders than your ability to apply dither, and your recording arts degree will be about as valuable as an Egyptian literature degree anyplace else.
Hanging around at local recording studios and being a pain in the ass will likely land you an unpaid or low-paid internship at which you will easily learn as much or more than you would get in a classroom, and you will also get the chance to develop a reputation and conncetions, and save many thousands of dollars. Doing this while you earn a degree in electrical engineering will make you a valuable commodity.
Be aware that the recording industry is a shrinking and elitist one, where minimum-wage or no-wage assistants work for million-dollar producers. It is shrinking rapidly, and is likely to continue to do so as more and more people, both musicans and listeners, turn to podcasts, satellite radio, webcasts, and mp3s to satisfy their ever-broadening tastes in music.
If you want to learn how to make better recordings, then by all means go for it. But I bet a year of hanging around these forums, asking smart questions, and pestering local studios for a position as unpaid floor-sweeper teaches you more that you'd get from recording school.
Cheers.