I can give some insight (hopefully). I'll tackle it point by point.
ctrooper wrote:So I really want to be a game designer in the near future.
Okay. First off, are you sure you want to be a game designer? Not to question the career choice, but the specification of a designer. There are lots of jobs in games, some of which have similar names that can confuse people. I wish I had a link to give you but I can't seem to find much but there is info out there. Search some game development jobs to see what each job requires/involves.
Assuming you've done this and know what a game designer is, I'll move on...
ctrooper wrote:what does it take to get into the industry?
Well, that depends. If you just want to jump in as a game designer, then you'll have to find development studios in your area or even start your own. Either way you'll have to do some schooling as I doubt a single development studio would take you without proper education. There are several classes/course paths that can allow you to become a game designer. There's computer engineer, computer programmer, computer science, and possibly more but those are the one's I could think up off the top. Computer science is probably the most meticulous of the three but all of them could get you a job. If you find a good University/College for CS they may even have separate branches. I know the one I am applying for (as I am planning on taking Computer Science) has a branch for video game development and simulation. These courses usually require mathematics and some schools requires other credits that have nothing to do with the course but you can't do much against it.
Remember you need a lot of education but you also need to know games! Playing them is of course a fantastic way to learn about design, common problems, what's fun and what isn't, and many required concepts to understand, but sometimes it's good to go further. Read video game articles, objectify what you see, attempt to find out or estimate how someone did something, read/watch interviews, and do whatever you can to learn, learn, learn.
To further explain estimated how someone did something (as that is very ambiguous) if you remember in Battlefront 2 how Mace Windu could slam on the ground and create a burn, you could ask yourself in a general manner, how did they do that? My estimation is that they have a sprite created underneath Mace right underneath the middle of his body. I'm fairly sure that is how because if you slam on the edge of a building the burn hangs off the side. This can become a problem solving exercise because you could ask yourself how would I go about this to make sure it didn't hang off the side?
Anyway, that's some advice. I can't specify a post-secondary establishment but maybe just looking at some college/university pamphlets will help.
