So I'm tickling different options here. One option is to be readmitted back into State.

There is one problem with that, I live in Carteret County and work full time as a TA and Bus driver.

Has anyone ever quit their full time job to go back to school full time? Does anyone have any advice. Unfortunately now, I have quite a few more financial obligations than I did 10 years ago. I'm afraid that I just won't be able to afford it at all.

I would love to hear any advice y'all have to offer.

11/13/2015 2:02:12 PM

Are you finishing a degree or starting a new one?

11/13/2015 4:42:53 PM

The older you get and the longer you are out of school, the harder it gets. Best of luck.

11/13/2015 10:56:05 PM

My wife did it. She was stuck in a dead end job at a non-profit so she went back for her masters. She graduated in may and just last week got a job back at the same non-profit, but a different position with much better pay.

We had to rack up $40k in loans to get by while she was in school, but the increase in pay now will make up for it in a few years. I had to keep telling myself while she was in school that it was a long term investment. I think it will pan out.

11/13/2015 11:30:43 PM

Don't do it

11/14/2015 7:09:24 AM

I did. Best decision I've ever made. That being said, it's not always a good idea, depends on your situation and earning potential from returning to school. If you can do a cost benefit analysis and it shows much better long term gains then go for it.

11/14/2015 8:47:49 AM

if you can sacrifice - live in cheap rental, drive a beater, work 20 hours a week. No more going out, no more shopping trips, no more living life. You can do it.

[Edited on November 15, 2015 at 5:09 AM. Reason : ss]

11/15/2015 5:09:30 AM

Quote :

"There is one problem with that, I live in Carteret County and work full time as a TA and Bus driver."

it's not like finding a minimum wage job in raleigh would be a problem, even if you did leave your current "career"

11/15/2015 7:08:08 AM

Well I've talked to a couple of people who have done this and they said they were able to get scholarships to cover their TA salary for the couple of years they were at school. I'm looking into finding scholarships.

My boyfriend would be coming with me. Ideally he would be able to find a job that could cover at least rent somewhere cheap. I would totally be looking at finding a part time job and working full time in the summer.

11/16/2015 10:14:27 AM

I am pretty sure your job prospects would be better in Raleigh with or without the degree. What career are you looking to get in to? If it requires a degree go for it.

The only thing I know about college degrees is a lot of really smart people do not have them, a lot of relatively stupid people do have them. The degree is like anything else you invest in, you need to know how it will generate a return for you or it might be a bad deal.

11/17/2015 12:30:11 PM

are there no online programs you can do to finish?

11/17/2015 1:14:33 PM

good friend of mine got an archaeology degree from UNC.

worked at exploris for years and had few other options. quit his job when he was over 30, got an MBA from wake, and now makes bank at an ad agency.

He went from supporting himself to being borderline destitute for a couple of years. it was really really tough for him, but i think he's much happier with his career now.

11/17/2015 4:53:42 PM

What's the deal with getting student loans? Can you do it even if, say, the GI Bill is paying for all the school? Depending on the interest rate, I bet it would be more attractive than just pulling money out of savings for a couple of years.

11/17/2015 8:02:31 PM

Quote :

"What's the deal with getting student loans? Can you do it even if, say, the GI Bill is paying for all the school?"

I did.

11/17/2015 10:13:59 PM

Quote :

"Can you do it even if, say, the GI Bill is paying for all the school? Depending on the interest rate, I bet it would be more attractive than just pulling money out of savings for a couple of years."

That's a double edged sword though, student loans have a lower interest rates but the government has much more robust collections methods than private lenders. No one likes to think they will ever be in a situation where they will have a hard time repaying loans of whatever stripe but unforeseen shit happens, and student loan debt will follow you to your grave. I knew someone with a terminal illness and a law degree from WFU who struggled to discharge their loans.

11/18/2015 12:51:08 AM

If I go back to school, it will be for a degree and from a school that will be basically certain to pay for itself many, many times over. It would take something like a terminal illness, etc for it be a bad deal.

11/19/2015 7:25:38 PM

my wife did this for a second masters...she's really enjoying her new career

didn't cost us much out of pocket since she TA'd all but the last semester and that covered tuition and fees and gave her a couple of hundred bucks of spending money per semester...she was a shoe-in for TA due to her previous experience TA'ing and the fact that she already had a graduate degree

11/22/2015 4:01:14 PM

I did. After the Recession, I saw how those folks who had been at the same job for 30+ years with just a high school degree struggled and did not want to be in that same position in 20 years despite absolutely loving what I did. I just graduated in May and have yet to find something in my field, but have had several interviews. My recommendation would be to do extensive research on if what you are looking to get a degree in is marketable and what is the projected growth potential. It may also be prudent to consider going further and getting a Masters Degree.

11/22/2015 4:05:42 PM

If you want to go back to school, Data Science is hot right now.

11/23/2015 7:01:31 PM

I didn't totally quit my job as a research tech about 7 years ago, but went part time while I was in nursing school. Now, I pull $$ as a nurse in cardiology/cardiothoracic between Duke and UNC.

Worth it? Even as a nurse, I'm projected to make over double my previous income (36 hours/week fulltime and 12 hour/week part time).

11/24/2015 12:28:26 AM

Quote :

"If you want to go back to school, Data Science is hot right now."

11/24/2015 2:34:14 PM

I quit my job to go to med school. We aren't allowed to have part time jobs, and I'm married with two kids. It is a shock to the system to go from making good money to nothing, but will pay off in the long run. I was 36 when I started, so it's definitely doable.

11/28/2015 10:45:51 PM

My wife was a social worker (English/Sociology dual degree from UNC) suffering from burnout and crap pay. She quit her job just after her 29th birthday and decided to go back to school for Occupational Therapy. It was a long process, 2 years of working part-time while getting prerequisite classes in order, then 2.5 years of classes/field work for the actual Master's degree while we lived on my salary. We'll be repaying the student loans for what seems like eternity.

However, in the end it was well worth it. She has a job that she loves (most days) with a great employment outlook. She had 2 solid job offers before graduation. And the money she is making, even subtracting the loan payment, is better than before.

Adjustments will be required; we moved out of state to put her in a top program, and we had to live apart for 4 months until I found a job in Richmond. But it's been a positive career-wise for me as well. If it's something you really want, just take the first step and things will fail into place with a few sacrifices and a lot of perseverance.

11/29/2015 3:53:28 AM

I recently quit my job and would love to go back to school for something, but we can't make it on my wife's salary alone. I could get a part time job but we would need more than that as well. Shit sucks, hope it works out for you.

12/1/2015 11:14:07 AM

A buddy of mine was working for IBM up until a few years ago and didn't really care for it. He quit and went back to school. In this situation he opted for a career change all together, switching from engineering to a business focus. He racked up a pretty good amount of debt because he chose to get his master's degree at Harvard. Currently he has a successful search fund in place and is in the process of purchasing a company. It will take him a while to pay off the loans but overall he is much happier with his life.

If you have the opportunity to go back to school and it will improve your situation in the long run I say go for it.

[Edited on December 1, 2015 at 11:41 AM. Reason : df]

12/1/2015 11:37:58 AM

lol if I ever had what it took to get into Harvard for almost any degree, I'd take it. having their name on your resume alone is worth whatever debt you'd pile on.

quitting to get an MBA from Mount Olive? not so much.

12/1/2015 3:39:51 PM

I know someone (not a TWWr) that spent 6 years running up student loans and did not graduate. I don't know how the fuck she did it....I thought they cut you off eventually if you were not progressing, but I guess they don't. She never worked during that time either, paid living expenses and everything with the SL money. She works in retail management in a job she could have gotten without ever going to school at all.

There is some new government rule that your SL pmt can not be higher than 10% of income. That has helped out a lot of people who have unmanageable loan balances or have jobs that just do not pay well but require a degree. I even recently had a client who had to wait until her loans came out of deferral so she could buy a house, the payment she would have owed without reducing it to 10% of her income in was too high to get a mortgage.

12/3/2015 12:14:28 AM

Yep and then after so many years of paying 10% they will forgive the rest of your debt I believe. Those of us who did things the right way get to pay for those who didn't but that's kind of the American way now. Also, the excuse that she didn't graduate and is stuck in a retail job isn't an excuse. I made some poor life choices in college along with some unforeseeable circumstances and didn't end up graduating either. Doesn't mean I haven't found a way to pay off my student loans that I agreed to take. It isn't like someone forced me to take those loans and the last semester or two I pretty much knew I was wasting my money, but it was my choice and I had to pay for it. Sometimes people make poor choices in life, why is it right for someone else to pay for those choices? /rant sorry to derail thread haha

12/3/2015 8:30:44 AM

Quote :

"Yep and then after so many years of paying 10% they will forgive the rest of your debt I believe. Those of us who did things the right way get to pay for those who didn't but that's kind of the American way now. "

You have to make payments for 20 years on an income based repayment plan to get anything forgiven (unless you are employed in certain public service positions) so it's not really the Get Out of Jail Free card you're making it out to be. You're also paying way more in interest by extending the repayment term from 10 to 20 years. I don't think the notion that you are subsidizing all the student loan deadbeats is accurate when the government is projected to earn $12-13 billion a year off student loan interest:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2014/04/19/student-loan-profits-show-government-should-get-out-of-student-loan-business/

12/6/2015 10:32:10 PM

Quote :

"lol if I ever had what it took to get into Harvard for almost any degree, I'd take it. having their name on your resume alone is worth whatever debt you'd pile on. quitting to get an MBA from Mount Olive? not so much."

Yep. I want to get an MBA from either Duke or UNC (Harvard/Wharton/Columbia/Booth/Stanford would be great, too, but Duke/UNC offer lots of tuition assistance with the GI Bill, are both top-tier, and most importantly, are by far the 2 closest top-tier schools to me geographically, and are geographically close to where I'd like to work...i.e., they feed the Charlotte finance industry, whereas Stanford feeds San Francisco and Silicon Valley, and the northeast schools feed Wall Street.)

(this is all way down the road, though...I'm tied to FL for my daughter for years to come)

12/6/2015 10:50:54 PM

the only ways I know of to get your debt forgiven:

- work in the public/non-profit sector full time for 10 years while making at least the minimum payment consistently during that time period. contracting doesn't count since you're technically going through a private sector intermediary. I believe you also have to fill out a form each tax season attesting to your progress. not sure about breaks in service and/or changes in effort.

- work for certain programs like Teach For America or in low-income / undeserved areas shortens the time period described above.

- some private companies will pay off your debt

- some federal jobs use it as a hiring incentive but it's really rare as far as I know

12/7/2015 4:53:44 PM

Yes, totally switched career paths after 5 years in the "real world" and went back to grad school. No regrets

12/7/2015 9:26:20 PM