Paying for Graduate School

[Kevin]

All I can say is that I hope either one of two things are true for you:

1) You marry a rich man; or
2) Your parents can afford to pay for your M.Ed.

The teachers I know who are pursuing Master's degrees teach at the same time. That'd be something to look into so that you don't have to live off of your loans. If you're doing this for money and plan to teach high school, I'd suggest that instead of a Master's right now, start teaching, wait 5 years, get National Board Certified (in my state that means you get a $5,000/year raise for 10 years with the ability to renew which is significantly higher than what you get for having a Master's) and work on your Master's over the Summer. You could also wait until you qualify for in state tuition and save a lot of cash.

A Master's degree is typically a lot of work, but it usually doesn't take that long to get. You could probably wait til you qualified for in state tuition, then chip away at that Master's over the next 5 years, pass the National Board exam and use that $ to pay whatever loans you have off.

At any rate, do what you want to do, but I think you'd be smart just to wait a bit, qualify for in-state, work the med-school angle a bit more and do the above things in the interim. If you end up as a teacher, at least you won't be a broke teacher.

[KSigkid]

Originally Posted by Kevin

All I can say is that I hope either one of two things are true for you:

1) You marry a rich man; or
2) Your parents can afford to pay for your M.Ed.

The teachers I know who are pursuing Master's degrees teach at the same time. That'd be something to look into so that you don't have to live off of your loans. If you're doing this for money and plan to teach high school, I'd suggest that instead of a Master's right now, start teaching, wait 5 years, get National Board Certified (in my state that means you get a $5,000/year raise for 10 years with the ability to renew which is significantly higher than what you get for having a Master's) and work on your Master's over the Summer. You could also wait until you qualify for in state tuition and save a lot of cash.

A Master's degree is typically a lot of work, but it usually doesn't take that long to get. You could probably wait til you qualified for in state tuition, then chip away at that Master's over the next 5 years, pass the National Board exam and use that $ to pay whatever loans you have off.

At any rate, do what you want to do, but I think you'd be smart just to wait a bit, qualify for in-state, work the med-school angle a bit more and do the above things in the interim. If you end up as a teacher, at least you won't be a broke teacher.

I think this is really good advice - my family has a lot of teachers (of all ages), and they handled it in this manner. Most did their masters while they were working, so that the student loans didn't become outrageous.

[carnation]

Kappamd, look to see if your school and/or your state have service-cancelable loans for science teachers. A lot of schools or states have these; you have to teach high need subjects (science is always one) for a few years, sometimes in a high-need area, and your loan is cancelled.

My daughter and I looked up these loans because we thought they'd be in weird subject areas and terrible parts of Georgia. They're mostly in science and math and in very livable parts of the state. Ditto for the same kinds of loans in health care fields; a person could live in a really great town and work just one county over.

[AGDee]

I would also try to find out whether it's difficult to get hired as a new teacher with an MEd. I know that in Michigan, school districts don't want to hire masters level teachers with no experience because they have to pay them almost twice as much as a bachelor's level teacher. People I've known who wanted to switch to teaching as a career have been encouraged to get a second bachelor's instead. To keep certification, they then have to complete 20 grad credits within 5 years of initial certification. Every 10 grad credits, they get a raise. The masters is usually 30 credits so after they get those first 20, they do another 10 and make double what they started out at. There are all kinds of summer courses they can do, sometimes even in resort areas, during the summer to get those credits so they don't even have to work full time and go to school at the same time.

The grad program I'm looking at is 51 credits (in Information Assurance). It's $500 per credit hour and all classes are 3 credit hours. My employer will pay up to $3000 a year in tuition reimbursement as long as I get at least a B in the course. My plan, if I decide to forge ahead with it, is to take 4 classes a year at $6000 total each year, get reimbursed for $3000 each year and pay for the other $3000 out of pocket. I will take a little over 4 years to complete it, but will have no student loans. My salary potential will almost double just in time for my kids to go to college so I can help them more then. I am completely on the fence about whether I should do this right now though. I enjoy having free time now and I feel like I would be giving up 4 years of my life for the purpose of making more money and career advancement. Is the trade off worth it? I see it coming down to Quality of Life vs. Money. Sure, money can improve quality of life, but what is more valuable to me? That's what it boils down to for me.

[KSigkid]

Originally Posted by AGDee

I would also try to find out whether it's difficult to get hired as a new teacher with an MEd. I know that in Michigan, school districts don't want to hire masters level teachers with no experience because they have to pay them almost twice as much as a bachelor's level teacher. People I've known who wanted to switch to teaching as a career have been encouraged to get a second bachelor's instead. To keep certification, they then have to complete 20 grad credits within 5 years of initial certification. Every 10 grad credits, they get a raise. The masters is usually 30 credits so after they get those first 20, they do another 10 and make double what they started out at. There are all kinds of summer courses they can do, sometimes even in resort areas, during the summer to get those credits so they don't even have to work full time and go to school at the same time.

The grad program I'm looking at is 51 credits (in Information Assurance). It's $500 per credit hour and all classes are 3 credit hours. My employer will pay up to $3000 a year in tuition reimbursement as long as I get at least a B in the course. My plan, if I decide to forge ahead with it, is to take 4 classes a year at $6000 total each year, get reimbursed for $3000 each year and pay for the other $3000 out of pocket. I will take a little over 4 years to complete it, but will have no student loans. My salary potential will almost double just in time for my kids to go to college so I can help them more then. I am completely on the fence about whether I should do this right now though. I enjoy having free time now and I feel like I would be giving up 4 years of my life for the purpose of making more money and career advancement. Is the trade off worth it? I see it coming down to Quality of Life vs. Money. Sure, money can improve quality of life, but what is more valuable to me? That's what it boils down to for me.

This may be slightly off topic, but I was surprised at how many states don't require a masters for teaching. In the states in which I've lived, you either have to have your masters already, or you have to be working towards it (and achieve it within a certain amount of time).