Hey everyone! Long time lurker first time contributor here!
My wife and I have a pretty sweet situation right now. She's the current breadwinner as an accountant, and I am the one still working on my career.
Because this isn't a case study, I'll spare the details on life in general as we feel like we've got a pretty good grasp on things, but questions inevitably arise...
In this case it's about me going to grad school. I have an undergraduate degree in Neuroscience and, while interesting, it doesn't afford great job options unless you continue on to Medical or Graduate school.
After working as a CNA for a year and a half (and hating it the whole time) and shadowing doctors and PAs I decided that healthcare isn't for me. The idea of going into academia and doing research sounded cool till I realized how hard it is to get tenure/get research funded. I met a few professors who even lost their jobs because they lost funding and that about sealed the deal.
So now I've settled on a career/job in data science and am going back to grad school to learn fundamentals of software development and data management/analysis. I'm really stoked on it as I love working with data, always have, and just wasn't aware there was a career that revolved around just working with data!
This is where my question begins...
-The program has a flat rate for tuition, including most of the course materials (computer, software, etc.): $38k
-I currently work for the University of Utah (where I will be attending school), if I maintain a 75% full time employment status, my tuition will then be half-off, so $19k.
-We have the money saved up to pay the whole tuition out of pocket regardless if it's half off or not. No debt needed! Woot!
-The program is 16 months (Aug 2018-Dec 2019). The advantage of this is that I can jump into a career with the skills gained and portfolio made much faster than a traditional master's program of 24 months. Time is money right?
-We will move to student housing and our rent will go down from $1,000/mo to $600/mo. We will be able to walk/bike to school and work easily (we can at our currently place too fyi). Woot!
-The current job I have is NOT compatible with the grad program. It is three 12 hour shifts a week. During school I will have class every day till noon, and then potentially some classes in the afternoons. With that grad school schedule and the amount of time I am forecasted to need to study (2-3 hrs per credit hour, ~15 credit a semester, ~9-12hrs study time...), it seems that I won't be able to find a 75% FTE job that could work around my schedule and afford enough study time very well.
-In an ideal world I would be able to find a job at the university that would allow me to work 30hr/wk and study on the job... but that's unlikely unless I did night security work. Which working night shifts I've learned is a sure fire way to tank all of my productivity rather quickly.
-I just began working a "side job" as a rock climbing coach where I'm paid a luxurious $30/hr. The amount of work I have is completely up to me and how motivated I am to advertise and get clients (I currently have zero and have a hard time telling people to shuck out hard-earned cash for my services, but such is the life of a mustachian, let me know if you know anyone who's interested ;). There is basically no set schedule, just when me and my client have time to meet up. My schedule is flexible and my work-load is flexible. Because of the high hourly pay, I would make more doing 10 hrs/wk of that than 20 hrs/wk of almost any other job I can find.
-In my opinion, I should just work that gig for the first few semesters of school to see how the balance goes. Then I may seek an internship doing data science during the last half of the grad program, as I will have afternoons mostly open. But I would again either want flexibility, or the ability to work remotely while doing so.
-My wife is advocating for me to get a job at the university, on top of this coaching gig. Her reasoning is the half-off deal on tuition, I do have a small 401k that I'm only 40% vested in (so if I leave now/august I'll get 5k instead of 10k... I may need to check the numbers on that again) that I will lose if I stop being an employee at the U, and that we'll be farther ahead financially if I work a more traditional job during school-- maybe even enough to put a down-payment on a home.
-My biggest worry with this is that while I am a decently clever person and good student, it's historically taken me a LOT of time to study and do well in hard classes. I've been diagnosed with mild ADHD before, so that could contribute. I worry about work affecting the quality of my schooling enough that it would then sabotage my efforts at starting a career or being expert in it. I do not have a background in software development or coding aside from some video games I made with Visual Basic in high school, and the amount of Python I've been able to learn in the past couple months. I worked through my whole undergrad until the last semester when I quit my job, and that semester I put in 8-10 hours of studying a day on top of attending classes, and that was good enough to get me A's and B's in a neuroscience undergrad (3.7 semester gpa, 16 credits).
-The math definitely makes it look like working 30hrs/wk is a great idea, but I wonder if it's worth sacrificing whatever quality level my education can attain for the sake of earning something like an extra $4k over the 16 months. I don't necessarily know how to quantify the quality of education to then weigh it against the amount I could earn over those 16 months.
-Many non-mustachians I've talked to about their school during their master's programs have said they definitely couldn't have worked during their masters programs. They've also pointed out my concern asking whether it would be better to come out with $15-19k off my tuition because I was working, or to bite that bullet in order to make up that amount rather quickly when I actually begin a career.
So there you have it, I tried to keep things somewhat organized for the ease of mustachians everywhere. I would really love to hear what fellow frugals have to say instead of the non-mustachians I've been talking to.
Category (multiplied by 16months) Value
Tuition -38400
Tuition w/ half-off -19200
Rent -9600
30/hr wk job 23000
20/hr wk job 15300
10/hr wk coaching job 19000
Quality of education ?
Internship during second half? ?