Advice needed - looking to earn CS credits

[Merlin]

Do you think accredited courses from community colleges would be fine?

You can absolutely complete these at a Community College. As long as a college is a legitimate (regionally accredited) academic institution of higher learning, it doesn't matter where you earn the credits.

The issue with earning credits via alternate education (ACE, etc.) is that those providers are not accredited educational institutions on their own. They just have arrangements through ACE where some colleges will accept their courses in lieu of traditional college courses for purposes of meeting degree requirements. The credits earned don't have any value in themselves, they are only valuable if the destination college accepts them. Whereas credits earned at a regionally accredited college have value no matter where you go. They won't always be accepted to meet degree requirements (that depends on the course and how it does, or does not, fit into a degree program at the destination school) but every school will recognize the credits.

And do you know where I can find out more about community colleges offering CS credits for non-degree seeking students? There are too many out there and I'd like to narrow down the options.

If it were me, I'd probably look at local community colleges. I don't know if there is anything similar for you.

As for online options, I know that Rio Salado College is pretty popular on the forum. I suspect people here will make other recommendations. There are a ton of options out there so you should also plan to do some research on your own to determine which one may be the best opportunity for you. You can start by checking the forum archives to look for online community colleges... particularly for those that offer self-paced courses.

Remember ACE credits have absolutely no academic value as a credential until a College or University plunks them on a transcript for a degree.  ACE credits are looked upon as transfer credits so a transcript for less than a full degree isn't going to magically bring life to them.

Technically, they still have no academic value outside of the college that accepted the ACE credits to meet the program requirement in question. Even if you earn a degree, any future college you attend will still want to see original transcripts from all sources of credit. If the destination college doesn't accept ACE, they won't accept those credits even if they were accepted in the past by another school. Yes, they will still recognize the degree (assuming it is an RA college degree) but that doesn't mean they will recognize the individual classes to meet their own entrance requirements, particularly at the graduate level.