I want to work with animals, where do I start?

I live in Phoenix,AZ and I'm going to be a senior in high school, now I have good grades, not great, but pretty good. I have always loved animals and I decided that that's the career path I want to take. I have done some research and was thinking maybe I should start out with going to school to get my vet assistant and then get my vet tech because that's a much cheaper route than 8 years of university to be a vet and I don't want to be over $100,000 in debt just starting out and who would give me that kind of money in this economy in the first place...now, what kind of pre-requisites would I need to get into a Vet Tech program? What kind of program should I look for? How much money would this schooling cost? How long would it take? Any help on this would be awesome:)