Is going back to school in your future? Maybe you can no longer move up in your company and a degree with help move you up, you want to brush up and increase your skills, increase your professional network, etc. However, what else should you think about when you finally decide to go back to school?
Your finances!
Your finances will be effected of course. Now that you’ve decided (or are planning) to go back to school, there’s a lot of planning to do, especially if you’ve been out of school for some time and have many bills to pay. Just quitting your job and going back to school isn’t a plan for most people. Those bills need to be paid and your debt that you currently have needs to be paid down. Also, what will happen to your retirement?
With the right amount of financial planning, going back to school doesn’t have to kill your budget and your goals for retirement, savings and paying down debt. If your financial plan is well thought out, then hopefully you’ll come out ahead after you graduate.
What you should financially think about when you decide to go back to school:
1. How often you’ll work.
Working while attending school can be tough. Will you attend school full-time while working still? Attend part-time and work full-time? Will your work allow you to do both at the same time? I’ve heard of companies that will not allow you to attend school full-time while working at their company because they don’t want you to have to choose which one that you’ll give more effort towards.
I did my whole undergraduate and graduate degrees while working full-time. It was definitely hard, and I only did it that way because I had things to pay for. Working part-time wasn’t really an option, but maybe if I had a better plan then it would’ve worked.
You can also majorly cut expenses and try as hard as you can to live like a student. You can find somewhere cheaper to live, find a better fuel efficient vehicle, eat cheaper, coupon, and so on. The list is really endless. Cutting expenses can really help you financially if you are unable to continue to work the same amount of hours while attending school.
2. What the costs are.
There are many costs to think about when going to school besides just the college tuition. How much will food cost between classes? Will you be able to go home and grab a snack? How much will the added cost of gas be? If you’re driving from work to class (or vice versa), then your gas costs will most likely increase.
Some people fund all of their costs by tacking it all onto their student loans, but I don’t think this is always a good idea as you will be adding a lot of unnecessary debt which will be a burden after you graduate.
3. Your budget.
Now that you’ve finally decided whether you’ll attend full-time or part-time, and whether you’ll work full-time or part-time, now is the time to decide your budget. You need to calculate how much you need every month, and also estimate how much you’ll be earning (if you’ll be working).
Also think about whether you will work on paying down debt (including any student loans that you may be adding toy our current debt) and if you’ll be saving any money towards retirement.
