Oh lord, how did this post get so long? Sorry, I'm a bit of a worrywart. First paragraph sums it up so feel free to respond just to that. Thanks much!
My husband is 33 and graduated with two advanced degrees in music 4 years ago. Since then, he has been working as a systems admin, general IT guy, for a distance learning program at the same school. He always liked computers and sort of fell in love with them when it turned out he didn't have the talent to make it into the new york phil :) Now he is seriously considering applying to Renssalaer for Computer Engineering or Computer science and I'm looking for perspectives on evaluating that.
He's a very self-motivated learner and likes his current job because no one really knows what he does so he can spend time teaching himself whatever he wants. He does get extremely frustrated with his boss and co-workers and often stays late or goes in on the weekend because he says they keep him from getting real work done during the day.
The job only pays 43K and he's never applied for any others. Given the low pay and his frustration with his boss, this bothers me. I feel like he hasn't really explored his options in the field. Maybe I'm wrong and you can get a perfectly good idea just from researching on the web.
He graduated with 100k student loan debt and enrolled in the income-based repayment plan so he's paying about $300, $200 towards interest. Now it's down to 40K mostly because his mom generously contributed a couple big chunks.
We got married last year after three years together. We keep separate finances. So I haven't helped with any payments to his student loan. He's by no means an aggressive saver, which is why I'm "pulling a Jacob." After maxing out my 401k and Roth, I contribute to a taxable account (even though my salary is the same as his) and I've considered putting that money into a Roth for him instead, or at least matching his loan payments. I like this idea over contributing to the loan payments myself because he's better at paying bills than saving. For example he has a special checking account that pays high interest but he regularly transfers money out of it into much lower interest savings for the psychological trick of not seeing a high balance whenever he goes to the ATM. So, a responsible guy, just not mustachian or sooper disciplined. Anyway, this is probably fodder for another post. Let's move on.
Rensselaer. He's interested in it because a friend went. He's only interested if he can get a decent stipend and he would try to get an RA position, so he does have an eye towards keeping costs low. It's two hours away so I would stay in the city at my job. He says he would apply to other schools as well but hasn't researched any others yet. He's thinking two years for a masters.
As for me, I wouldn't mind quitting my job and moving. I'm pretty adaptable job-wise. I work on the technical side of events and performing arts and there would be a significantly smaller pool of that kind of work outside the city, but I'm good at finding ways to transfer my skills plus I could still pick up some money by coming back into the city for freelance until something else worked out. The spouse said he hadn't imagined that I would quit my job and move and seemed to be thinking his coming back once or even twice a week would be the plan. We are both pretty independent so I don't think the separation would be as big a deal as for other couples. I thought of getting a roommate for our bigger bedroom so I might even pay less in rent.
The other issue is I was thinking we would have kids in the next couple years. My current job would be a good place to be when having kids because the hours are flexible. But he would apply to go fall of 2014 meaning I'd be 33. So I would just be turning 35 when he graduated, and I was hoping to have 2 kids before 35 (not because I'm, like, a control freak about my life plan, just, you know, the reality of female fertility). But even with the most flexible hours in the world, 2 kids on my own would be pretty damn difficult. So I could relocate to where he is. Or if I wait til 35, he then has to deal with a newborn right as he's starting his first job. When I brought this up he just responded that at that point he would have the type of job he could do a lot of from home, so he didn't think it would be too much of a problem.
My concerns are:
1. Like I said, that he hasn't gotten enough actual work experience to know his prospects. He might find a situation with a less moronic boss. He's a good communicator and I think his chances of getting a better paying position right now are very good. He might find a place with room to grow, but he's worried he'll just get pigeon-holed at his current skill level. Even then, I wonder if he might not find a place with tuition reimbursement.
2. That he's betting too much on the positive effects of education, ignoring the influence of personality and approach. He mentions jobs that pay 200k but I suspect, particularly since these are jobs which are easily out-sourced, that there is a lot of competition for them, and he is not a competitive guy. He's a beta male whose strength is more patience and methodical thought than ambition or revolutionary insights. God, I hope I don't sound like a bitch.
3. The whole plan would seem really good to me if he weren't 33 and with very few years in the workforce so far. He doesn't have any debt besides the student loan, but he doesn't have any retirement savings or investments either. Part of this is is personal bias in that I had the realization that I would rather plug away at a lower income and save a ton of money rather than take risks in the hopes of pursuing a high-paying, high-stress career. Part of this is selfishness too in that I worry I'll get to the point where I could be FI on my own but he won't even have adequate regular retirement funds in which case I won't feel comfortable retiring early. (Oddly, part of this is feminism too. I have no problem formulating a plan for what happens if his income doesn't live up to expectations. But formulating a plan assuming he'll make a ton of money makes me feel uncomfortable because it seems sexist.)
4. I'm worried he's too in love with the potential of school. So long as he's planning on school, he can imagine himself in an ideal job. But I question how strong his motivation is when he won't even apply to other jobs now. It seems like he only wants to move if the perfect thing comes up. There is yet more personal bias here because he doesn't listen to my suggestions. I try to get him to just go for an interview or ask for a session with an HR person to see if he can get some information about what companies are really looking for. But he doesn't. He says he really wants to develop something, solve a programming problem or something, so he can show a potential employer something he's created. Which sounds great to me and he certainly spends plenty of time doing...computer-type stuff. But like 6 months ago he took a website development freelance job against my advice just for the extra money and has spent hundreds of hours on it, even though website development is not at all what he wants to do. I just keep saying that he should have a very concrete plan but I get the nagging sensation he thinks of job stuff just taking care of itself if he goes to school. Or that other people will find a purpose for him if he just gains enough knowledge. This could absolutely be because I don't know enough about the industry or to understand his plans if he does have them.
5. I'm worried that even though he says his goal is to do it without going into more debt that once he goes through all the work of taking the GRE and applying that he will be so excited about the possibilities that he won't be able to give up on the idea (this is a guy who spent ten years studying a musical instrument, remember) (I should mention that in the big picture the fact that he has tunnel vision and is persistent and doesn't listen to other people can be quite endearing.)
6. In case you're not sick of hearing my opinions yet, I keep wondering why he doesn't tailor his goals towards experience he already has. A lot of times when I hear him talk to other computer folks, they want to pick his brain for his knowledge of A/V stuff, since he knows a lot about video encoding and sound engineering. Plus, there's that whole three degrees in music thing which you'd think might be useful for something beyond just lending the suggestion to his resume that he has a creative side.
The big upside is he would be happy. He really likes learning. Even if he didn't earn significantly more money, it would be nice for him if it got him the job opportunities he wants. (He is not sure right now if he is more interested in code programming or hardware stuff but he seems to be leaning towards hardware, like hardware programming or design or radio frequency engineer.) So in addition to general perspectives on the yes/no proposition, I'm wondering if anyone can give advice about what other steps he should take to maximize the experience if he does do it. Or, for all my worrying, he might be doing exactly the right thing, and that would be nice to find out too.
Sorry for the super long post that ended up with more focus on the personal that I originally planned.