Hello All!
I could really use some help! I'm an extremely indecisive person and I need to make a decision that is incredibly hard to make! When I originally enrolled in school I was planning on becoming a school counselor. I finished up my bachelor's degree in psychology and was going to get started on my master's degree but am now having second thoughts. I worry about job prospects in school counseling when I am done with my degree. The master's program will run me about $17,000 (not including books) so it is reasonably priced for a master's degree but my husband has a job that he loves with a lot of room for promotion. Because of this job, we live in a very rural area and there are only 3 schools in the area. Even though I have finished my bachelor's degree, I feel as though I would be "dropping out" in a sense because I wouldn't be finishing what I started out to do. I like the idea of having summer's off and a middle class income, but I want early retirement more and feel as though I should just keep working and investing and possibly teaching myself web development to obtain a job with a higher salary (I make 30K now and am interested in increasing my salary though a master's degree or some other means). My husband makes pretty good money now (around 60k). I am only 24 years only and I really don't want to saddle my future family with student loan debt if I won't be able to reap the financial rewards from the debt later.
We have no student loans
We have no credit card debt
Both of our cars are paid off
Our only debt is on a duplex that is over halfway paid off!!
We have lived a very mustachian life and enjoy saving money and we are learning more about investing.
I would really like some help from people who are little bit older than me and have more wisdom and possibly life experience about getting a master's degree and how it turned out for them.
Question: Given my circumstances, should I continue on with my master's degree or call it quits on formal education and seek alternative means for obtaining a higher salary?
Here's a middle ground to help you feel comfortable with your decision. Take a semester off! Keep working and doing whatever else it is you do with your time. If around Oct/Nov/Dec, you decide you want to return and finish the program, then go for it.
In economics, your undergrad degree, and basically everything before today, is a "sunk cost". A sunk cost is anything that was paid/incurred earlier, but you can't do anything about it now and it should be ignored for future decisions. A crazy example is if you bought a power saw for $1,000 in hopes that you would start a woodwork business, but then you got injured, and during injury you decided that you hate trees and wood. Once you get healthy, should you buy the sanding machine, paint bench, retail space, etc, just because you already paid for the power saw?
Of course not!My silly example stands to illustrate that your prior degree (let's say it was in basket weaving) really doesn't matter. It's the past, and you can't change it now.
Would it make sense to spend more time and take on more debt to get a degree in something you don't know you want to do for a while? The answer is no...
I'll say this: until you decide what you want to do, don't spend any more money on school. Education is a means to an end, not a place to "figure things out". If you don't know your desired end yet, then that's where you should start.
Good luck!