Paying for Graduate School

[Kappamd]

I have applied to graduate school for the next year, and am slightly freaking out about how to pay for it. The program I really want to do is $50,000 for two years (YIKES). So to all of you with masters or PhDs, how did you pay for graduate school? Loans? Did you work? Scholarships?

Thanks!

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by Kappamd

I have applied to graduate school for the next year, and am slightly freaking out about how to pay for it. The program I really want to do is $50,000 for two years (YIKES). So to all of you with masters or PhDs, how did you pay for graduate school? Loans? Did you work? Scholarships?

Thanks!

I have a graduate assistantship. That's how alot of grad students I know pay for school. You get your tuition paid (or sometimes partial tuition and a stipend) in exchange for having certain responsibilities. I work in the department office helping the program coordinator with whatever she needs. Some of the other GAs I know work in the Campus Counseling Center (I'm in a counseling program).

Check and see if the department/program offers assistantships and apply for them (if you get into the program, of course). There are typically only a few of these positions per department.

[Kevin]

The question you should be asking yourself is how you plan to pay back the loans. A few weeks ago, I read about a girl who graduated from a prestigious program offering some sort of graduate degree in photography.

She had over $240,000 in student loans.

Student loans are great (God knows I'm up to my eyeballs in them). I'll be doing a job where I'm sure I'll be able to make my student loan payments (and have plenty to spare). If you look at the sort of job you'll have upon graduation and you know ou'll be able to find a salary which is enough, then great. If not, you'll need to find some source of cash besides student loans.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by Kevin

She had over $240,000 in student loans.

Wow. That's astronomical. I thought my $5,000 from my 5th year of undergrad was bad.

Kappamd: What kind of program is this?

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

Wow. That's astronomical. I thought my $5,000 from my 5th year of undergrad was bad.

Kappamd: What kind of program is this?

Yep.

Just remember you have to actually pay the money back. I think we sometimes approach student loan money as not being real money. It doesn't feel like real money... we've gone to school since we can remember. I just have to click here and sign there and I can continue doing what I've always done.

But six months after graduation, those bills come -- and they expect payment in full.

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by Kevin

The question you should be asking yourself is how you plan to pay back the loans. A few weeks ago, I read about a girl who graduated from a prestigious program offering some sort of graduate degree in photography.

She had over $240,000 in student loans.

Student loans are great (God knows I'm up to my eyeballs in them). I'll be doing a job where I'm sure I'll be able to make my student loan payments (and have plenty to spare). If you look at the sort of job you'll have upon graduation and you know ou'll be able to find a salary which is enough, then great. If not, you'll need to find some source of cash besides student loans.

This is absolutely true. $240K to do photography?! Some DOCTORS I know don't even have that much, and they make more than enough to pay it back easily. Sometimes I think schools make it way too easy to take out loans. Ewww!

I was a graduate assistant in Residential Affairs in Graduate School. I had to live in a dorm, but it was an apartment within a dorm. It paid for my housing, which was great because I lived in NYC, and most of my dining expenses. I had a TA-ship that paid for half the tuition for that semester, and a scholarship that was half-tuition for the full year. A lot of my grad school classmates laughed at me because theye totaally thought I was an RA, but I got the last laugh since my student loans were oh, less than half of theirs. They send each other Facebook posts about how they can reduce their loan payments. Idiots.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by Kevin

But six months after graduation, those bills come -- and they expect payment in full.

Yes they do, and they don't want to hear "I have a PhD in Photography and don't make enough to make these payments."

[KSigkid]

Whether you should work, or even can work, will depend heavily on your program.

I'm working full-time while attending law school evenings (usually 4 evenings per week). However, if I was a day student, the ABA would limit the amount I could work to 20 hours per week (it depends on how many credits you take). My money from work is going towards school, and since I go to a (relatively) inexpensive state school, that plus financial aid covers my tuition and living expenses. Of course, my wife works full-time as well, so that helps.

Depending on the program, some schools will give you a stipend for working with a professor or on a project.

I'll echo Kevin on the student loans; just make sure you keep track of your loans, and, before you take any out, try to take a long view of your career. You'll want to think about the following things (which I've tried to keep in mind throughout my schooling):

- Will you be making enough when you graduate to pay the loans off?
- How will loan payments fit into your long-term future? (buying a house, buying a car, having a family, etc.)
- Is your job market one that has been hit especially hard by the economic downturn?
- What will your monthly payments be when you graduate?
- Is there any way to get loan reimbursement because of your profession?

Again, like Kevin said, way too many people think of loans as Monopoly money, and get into real trouble when they graduate and can't pay them off.

[Kappamd]

This is an M.Ed program in science education. The reason it is so much is because it is out of state. And the biggest a reason why I am concerned is because I know teaching high school isn't going to pay much in the long run. I certainly don't want to spend 30 years paying off student loans. I have applied for every assistantship, scholarship, etc. available so hopefully if I choose this route something will come through. I just wanted to see what others' experiences were so I can make the best decision when the time comes.

Of course this all for nothing if I end up getting off one of the med school waitlists I am on. That is a whole different situation finances-wise.

[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).

[Kevin]

I've never heard of states requiring a Master's to teach anything (except higher ed).