The forums here are a great resource regardless of whether you take classes or not. As for classes, depends on how much you study outside of class and also which teacher. I can’t tell you if it’s worth it or not because that will depend on your specific needs and financial situation. But I learned Chinese much much faster here than college students who learn at school do. It’s cheaper than college, most language schools (in America at least), in person tutoring, and going abroad. And the quality is comparable if not better assuming you’re self motivated and find a good teacher.

I'm both a teacher and a student here. From a student's perspective, it is certainly worth your time and money as you can buy discounted packages from teachers, or even change between teachers to find one who's right for you. There's plenty of information on each teacher's profile, so feel free to have a look around. When you book a session, remember to write directly to the teacher and tell him/her what you'd like to focus on in your lesson. It saves both the teacher and the student a lot of time and disappointment. :)

If you looking for a teacher, I don't recommend using italki since in my experience, most of teacher here don't (or more accurately, can't) have teaching plan. Let's say the teacher have teaching plan for 8x meeting, however the student can drop out anytime so it's useless for them to have any teaching plan. I suggest finding real teacher in your place who have teaching plan and use italki so you could practice with native speaker. That's what I do with my Japanese learning