Speech-pathology programs, only one in my city?

Your best bet is to do as much research as you can about the grad program in your city. What are the prerequisites? How long will it take to complete them? It usually takes a year for the prerequisites. Go talk to someone in the department. Apply for the program. If you don't get in, then either take the prerequisites as an undergraduate (degree or non-degree, depending on your options) at the university. This will give you a chance to get to know the facutly, and they you, and if you work really, really, hard, you'll be able to impress them and thus increase your chances of getting in because they'll know that you're capable of doing the work.

Unless the online program is one that you're really sure about and is from a school that has a good and accredited speech pathology program, don't do it. It must be accredited, otherwise you won't be able to get lisenced by the American Speech and Hearing Association (ASHA). I added some links below of accredited online speech pathology programs. Good luck.

More info on speech-language pathology here:

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos099.htm

ASHA - Accredited grad programs:

http://www.asha.org/gradguide/

ASHA - Accredited online programs:

http://www.asha.org/about/recruitment/ModelUniDist...

Here's a program through James Madison University, University of Virginia and others:

http://www.dlve-slp.org/

More info:

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:Y01Cuytg9WYJ:...

I don't know exactly how employers view online degrees because I am not an employer. You may want to ask the human resources department of schools and hospitals in your area or ask a few contract companies about how they would feel about it before you make your decision.

The American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA) website can tell you which schools have accredited speech language pathology programs. Their website also has a list of schools that offer online courses and programs.

This link from ASHA lists programs that offer distance learning courses and/or programs in Speech. Perhaps you could contact each of them to try and see what would be best for you.

http://asha.org/students/academic/distance_ed.htm

Here is the link for U.S. News & World Report's rankings of the top SLP programs:

http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~nguyen/USNews2005/slp.php.h...

One school that I know of that has an online SLP MA program is the Western Kentucky University. Here is the link to ASHA's information on them:

http://asha.org/gradguide/grad_guide.cfm?SchoolKey...

Here is the link directly for the Western Kentucky University Online Master of Science in Communication Disorders:

http://www.wku.edu/onlineprograms/communicationDis...

Good luck :)