If you do go down this route, make sure you produce a portfolio of completed work. So you'd have a program or three that you've written for each course (or similar) that demonstrates your knowledge and is on github and indexed and explained well [1], and a big file folder you can take to interviews and say "I know it's not a degree course, but it's the same content and here is all the work I did to make sure I actually understood the material" (rather than just watching the lectures and barely passing/cheating in the online exams.)

[1] Github links on resumes: it doesn't have to be perfect, but not much time is spent reviewing resumes, so make sure your best projects are easy to identify and explore.