What do you mean after August 2009 you will need 150 credit hours? Have they changed the requirements to sit for the CPA exam? I think the 150 credit hours refers to all of the credits you need to take the test (basically an undergraduate business degree) of which a certain portion will have to be from accounting. I could be wrong (it might be 4) but I think a 1 semester class counts for 6 credit hours. So if you took a normal course load of 4 classes per semester for 4 years thats 32 classes * 6 credit hours = 192 credit hours. I doubt that is 150 hours of accounting classes since that would make it 25 classes and I don't think schools even have 25 accounting classes available.
But I'm not sure of what the future regulations will be. For a guy majoring in business (finance in mine and your case), I verified in the beginning of 2007 that you need to have 8 accounting courses under your belt along with the business degree.
If you do pass the four parts of the CPA exam, then you need to have 3 years of work experience in accounting or work under a current CPA to be officially licensed. However, I do know that firms consider passing the exam as equivalent to being officially licensed. Just passing is enough is what I'm saying.
After being licensed, you also need to take a certain amount of continuing education in the form of seminars I believe to maintain your license. This is why many accounting professionals just pass the test, get the license, but then forgo maintaining the license and just indicate that they have passed the CPA exam.
As for the community colleges, since you are in NYC I would try to go for a local college there since it will make it easier for you to pick up the books.
Here in LA, virtually all of the community colleges offer an online option although not all of the classes are given online. However, some colleges like Los Angeles City College offer the online option for its accounting curriculum every semester.
The community college is the economical way to go as a class costs only 60 dollars (here in CA) and the greatest expense you will have is the book.
Please let me know what you have found out about the regulations changes. The AICPA site is confusing and it's often best to just call into a service rep and ask her directly what the rules are.