I've considered getting either my MBA or my CPA, but didn't find the return on investment to be worth it.
I have a BA and MA from a large state school and found the most rewarding things from my tenure in college were the relationships I built--not the classes. I would NEVER go into debt for a Master's or MBA--it's just not worth it. Find someone else to pay (scholarship, assistantship, teaching) or get to work, it's better experience anyway.
Invite local business owners to come and speak so you're building relationships between the group and the outside business community.
I hadn't considered a remote group, meet over Skype, or just via forum. If you're interested, shoot me an email and we'll go from there.
I didn't know if it was realized probably not. But I would be delighted if we could start one! This year I started a book challenge for myself (http://111in2011.tumblr.com) and looked for discussion platforms. GoodReads is not really useful because there are too few people interested in business books. And writing short reviews/summaries about books is nice but I miss the conversations :)
So, if you start a discussion board or whatever, I'm happy if I can participate!
Haha. I had to smile at "Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity and don’t be a wimp." for Robin William's Non-Designer’s Design Book. I brought up CRAP in a meeting and I swear everyone thought I had three heads. I would have settled for two :-)