A CCNA would be very valuable, ive just finished my 4th CCNA semester at uni, and its been a good course. Lots of work involved though, and the exams are very hard (i've not done the final, final one yet (just the mock), but trust me its not easy, its an adaptive exam that focuses in on your weak areas :S)

Try and find a university or college near you that has a CCNA/CCNP lab, they normally have decent enough tutors there and a decent lab - but check out the equipment they have available for you to use first, you dont want a load of crummy old 2501 routers and 1900 series switches to use, if thats all they have you will find the course much harder

I know that my uni (staffordshire) run CCNA courses outside of degrees, so i expect others do too?

The CCNA certification validates an individual's networking skills and forms the base that supports all of the career tracks supported by Cisco. Holders of the CCNA demonstrate an industry-recognised ability to install, configure and maintain networks.