Hello h22chilton, you say that you are ready for a career change. Welding and all of it's related offshoots can be a terrific way to provide for you and your family providing it's truly something that you could enjoy and be good at. As far as the schooling aspect goes, check out your local programs first or possibly checkout the apprenticeship possibilities in your area. These may give you an opportunity to figure out if the trade is all that you believe it to be and that it suits your wants and wishes. Once you are certain of this career change you can consider other options for training, schooling, and work possibilities. The benefits of local schooling can be cost savings and convenience, providing they have quality programs with good service histories, student satisfaction, and area industry satisfaction. Apprenticeship programs are another option that are truly beneficial due to the "work as you learn and earn" type scenario, they generally offer decent wage incentives and provide schooling at either no cost or minimal cost to you as you are progressing through the program. Depending on the particular craft, they will start you at a given percentage of the journeyman scale and usually increase this scale dependent upon the hours logged and the various schooling benchmarks. I believe most of these programs are based upon 4 to 5 year apprenticeships and sometimes they will allow some of this time to be cut-off dependent on previous work experience or schooling. The high-end private schools such as the Lincoln or Hobart are also very good, they provide intense and excellent training, yet they are certainly a bit more pricey than other options. Their reputations and your successful completion of the various training regimens are generally a pretty good guarantee of receiving an opportunity to gain good employment. I certainly suggest that you explore your options. Regardless of your final choice, if you decide that welding is for you and you put forth the effort you will not be disappointed by the results that can be achieved in this trade. I know there are tons of individuals out there that can attest to their satisfaction in having chosen this field. You will likely also receive many other suggestions for your consideration, read them, consider them, and make your choice for how you will proceed. Best regards, aevald

I second what aevald says about getting a taste of welding before you end up spending alot of time and money. You local tech school which may not give you a complete picture of the trade, it will atleast give you some exposure and then you can decide if it is what you want to do to earn a living. In my case, I wanted to weld early on (age 17) and, but being financially challanged, I wound up going to a Job Corp which had a welding course. I learned oxy/fuel welding, cutting and SMAW (stick welding) and I certified as a structural welder. I had seen my instructor welding a pipe coupon and asked him what it was and he said he was practicing for a pipe certification. I enquired where to learn the skill whic was at a local technical college so I pushed myself to apply there. That was a fairly intensive program which was 5 hours of welding a day for over 10 months and it taught practically every major welding process used in the industry. Well worth the 5 grand it cost at the time which now I suppose is 3 times that amount or more. Still , I had not really gained all the skills necessary to say I mastered any particular process, but I had desire and once I got out in the field, I was able to figure out who was really good and I watched, listened and asked questions of techniques and welding related stuff. It lead me to make fewer mistakes and my welding quality increased and finally productivity. Now, over 20 years later I can pretty much go anywhere and test for a job and be fairly confident I will atleast be able to show them I can weld.
I still like welding and it does pretty much pay the bills, but what you may consider a good wage may not be the same as someone elses opinion. That really depends on geographic location. Pipe welding IMO pays the most, but you need to be able to travel. If that is what you want to do then you'll need the skills to weld pipe with more than one welding process. And....it is very competitive out there. Some jobs require productivity over quality, but most contractors demand both. So, there is major commitment there to be competitive.
Chopping cars or modifying street rods is usually done with GMAW or mig welding and the isn't a whole lot of skill to do that as compared to welding a pipe joint that will pass an x-ray examination. Guys I went to school with.... about 1/2 actually went out and made a career of it. Some just didn't like it or others were not driven to excel at it.
Again,  it is up to the individual.
Be well,

Hawk