Graduate School: Is It Worth It?

I've been gone for a while, I know.  Sometimes life gets in the way!

Last week I was in Germany for my cousin's wedding.  Happy to visit family and be part of the celebration, when the usual question came up: "When are you going to grad school?" And my usual answer: "Im planning on it...next year" with a big smile... But, it's not completely untrue, grandma, just the "when" part. I have been looking into it and I have an idea of what I want to study.  Two problems I encounter every time: standardized testing and the $$$.  I'll talk about standardized testing in another blog. Right now I want to talk about money (duh!).

It's going to cost a lot...every time I look at the numbers, I wonder why people even think about doing this. But here I am thinking.  One program, that looks really cool (really cool), is going to be $100k.  Of course on their website it says $51k, but that's only for one year and to graduate it's scheduled to take two years. So sneaky!

So I started doing the math in my head.  Say I save $20k and my parents help with $20k, that'll bring it down to $60k.  With my current salary, I could probably afford $500/month, living very cheaply that is...anyways, $500/month is $6000/year.  If I kept it up, I'd have it paid off in 10 years. Oh wait, interest. =( Interest calculations are too hard to do in my head...and even on paper.  So, I found some pretty cool resources online (I'm not going to be a mathematician so it's ok):

• FinAid Calculators: Most detailed calculator. 
• Debt/Salary Wizard: A very simplified calculator.  More of a guideline than a standard, since it assumes how much you are able to pay every month based on your salary, not your frugality! 
• You Can Deal With It: This site has a bunch of different calculators you can use to figure out either how many months it will take, how much your monthly payment should be, etc. 

In conclusion, before you consider grad school, you really need to figure out realistically how you're going to pay for it.  Imagining having a great, high paying job or lots of scholarships isn't going to cut it.  Having both would definitely help, but better safe than sorry.  As for me,  not sure I'll ever have a super high paying job as I like the nonprofit/NGO world, but I'll work on getting scholarships!  Including the interest, my monthly payments would have to be about $540/month to pay off the debt within 10 years.  So for now, I'll just save money like it's going out of style...

Asset limits prevent people on SSI/SSDI from obtaining financial stability

Most of us have experienced the harsh effects of the financial crisis, but what if you had no savings or 401K to cash in to give you a little buffer? What if you were not allowed to save for an emergency like this? Individuals on SSI or SSDI are in this situation.

At the SparkPoint Marin Center we say that everyone should have three months of expenses in their savings. So when things go wrong, which they eventually do (trust me on this), you have a cushion to fall back on.

When you are on SSI/SSDI fixed income, not only is it close to impossible to put money aside for savings, but the government actually discourages it. Currently, you are not allowed to have more than $2,000 in assets in order to receive disability benefits. $2,000 is not a lot for when, for example, you break a leg or another financial crisis occurs. People’s savings need to be higher.

After talking to several people living on SSI/SSDI, I have learned about the utter lack of resources our elderly and disabled people have. However, even with their limited income and barriers to extra revenue or savings, they were making ends meet…until the financial crisis hit!

So why can’t they save? Asset limits are designed to restrict who applies for benefits and who deserves benefits, but it doesn’t always work. Since assets are technically defined as any personal resource, such as cash, savings accounts, a car, a retirement fund, or a valuable heirloom, benefits programs can strip away someone’s livelihood before beginning to help them.

Not only are these asset limits really inhibiting to individuals receiving benefits, but enforcing them is expensive. In fact, the percentage of people who “trick” the system and get benefits unlawfully is so low it does not equal the amount of money spent on enforcing asset tests. Many states have actually done away with their asset limits. For example, 5 states have gotten rid of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) asset tests, and all but 2 states do not do asset tests for Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) (CFED: Eliminating the Incentive to Save). While many state benefit programs are tending to move away from asset tests, the federal social security act has not been updated since 1970 and continues to enforce outdated asset limits.

(I wrote this for the Marin Grassroots Network)

When TV Shows hit home

I have been talking a lot about...well retirement and a little about my VISTA experience. But I haven't really touched on the whole reason for writing this blog: trying to figure out what to do after college!

Well, for a long time now, I've been worrying about my future, and the impact of the decisions I make today.  Having options such as the foreign service, working or starting a masters/ph D forces you to think about the whole picture. If I want to join the foreign service, do I do this now? Before I've completed a masters? How long would my time commitment be? Can I explore other careers before I pursue this option? Or will I be "too" old? Will I have kids while I'm in the foreign service or will I quit it before? Crazy questions huh? Deciding whether to do my masters now or push it out a couple years is just as difficult!

The continuing education question brings up a lot of things I'm unsure about. A lot of my friends and class-mates decided to continue studying. As a poli-sci major, there are some very clear pathways people have taken.  A couple friends will be going to law school, pursuing ph Ds, or continuing in poli-sci. I've been thinking that if I continue studying I don't want to learn more of the same, but I also don't want to go to law school.  This means all the options my friends are looking into are not going to be my path. At the moment, I think studying econ or finance would be interesting. The work I've started doing through VISTA has definitely steered my in this direction.

Well anyways - the reason this post is titled "When TV shoes hit home" is because of a character's decision not to go to law school.  In one of my favorite TV shows, Greek, the main character Casey decides to drop out of law school, because she realizes that's not exactly what she wants to do with her life.  Now you may be asking, what does that have to do with me? Well, the law school questions came up quite a few times during "future" discussions and while a law degree can be a great asset for any job, I don't think that should be the reason for getting it.  Practicing law does not appeal to me, and I've ruled it out, even knowing that it could open doors for me, because it just seems wrong to do something and spend so much money on something I do not enjoy! ... Casey's choice to go a different route really reaffirmed my decision for me and I am happy she did it. Especially for an ABC family TV show, it is quite bold to have the protagonist drop out of something! Thank you! for making it acceptable to go into politics without a law degree!