My wife and I have been talking and she is considering a career change when she goes back to work. She has been staying at home with our daughter for almost 3 years, but we know that we want her to go back to work at some point. (not that what she’s been doing at home hasn’t been work).
She currently has two bachelors degree. Neither of them are degrees that will let her earn a good living, although they do make her quite employable. Over the first few years that we were married, she found that she wasn’t particularly enjoying her line of work.
So, she is considering going through a masters in teaching program. The total cost of the program would be about $26K. Once she graduates from this program, her income would be nearly $36k per year. This represents about a $4k premium to what she would make if she continued working in an office environment. So, it would take nearly 7 years to see our return on the investment.
Besides the financial aspects we have to consider, we also need to be thinking of lifestyle benefits. If she became a teacher, she would have a similiar schedule to our daughter’s once she was in school. She would really like to teach and believes that it would be fulfilling. I kind of like the idea because it’s a very portable skill set. Eventually, we could move to another area and she would be able to bring her teaching skills/certificate with her so that she could find employment pretty much anywhere.
So, that’s what the discussion is around our house these days. Anyone have any advice?
Is that 24k through a state university or a private college? Is that the best school at the lowest price that she can go to? Education is always a good investment. But if she ends up not enjoying teaching or can’t find a job, then it’s money wasted.
Becoming a teacher is a pretty good deal. Lots of vacation, decent pay for the hours you put in, great retirement benefits, and a family friendly schedule.
I think it sounds like a great idea especially since you have kids. I recommend job shadowing or assisting a teacher for a while. Might sound like something for someone my age, but I think it could help her figure out if she really wants to do it.
Either way – best of luck!!
Have you considered other options, looked at what she’s passionate about and what she’s good at? What about starting your own business? What’s going to make her happiest? I imagine it’s just because this is a financial blog, but you’ve sort of presented this from a mostly financial and practical standpoint, but in this case, it’s really her (and therefore your family’s) happiness we’re talking about (not that those other things aren’t important.)
Also, I don’t know what her degrees are, but she needn’t neccessarily work in a field related to them, often just having the degree will get you in somewhere where you can do something you like. My mom has a psych degree, and she’s a manager working with engineers at a large corporation.
That all being said, if it’s teaching she wants to do, I believe there are programs specifically geared towards getting professionals into the classroom, I don’t have any experience with them, but it would be something to look into.
IMO, education is the key to open many doors. In just looking at the financial side, in most (definitely not all) professions, the degrees you have on the wall dictates your professional growth, and thus financial growth. I think that your statement of “She would really like to teach and believes that it would be fulfilling” says it all. In looking at investments, what is that statement worth? I believe that even though in theory it would take 7 years to see the ‘monetary’ return, the real return would be seen almost immediately in her professional growth and educational accomplishments.
I see a 4K premium per year, but would her salary also grow faster? If so, that may shorten the payback period.
We’ve talked about lots of options but it’s the teaching that she has expressed the most interest in. One of the big reasons is so that her schedule aligns to our daughter’s and so that she can have summers and holidays off with her too.
The payback would be a little less than 7 years, but the pay increases aren’t much different than the pay increases she would get in another job, so I don’t think I’d count that towards payback. (It would probably be pretty consistently a $4000 difference year over year)
Teaching can easily burn a person out with the political aspect of it concerning parents. If she doesn’t like conflict or politics, she may have a tougher time dealing with it teaching than in some corporate job. Parents can, and are, the most difficult to deal with. I think this makes the risk factor more concerning the investment, since it is also an investment of time and money.
If she loves teaching, then what does money matter? Doing something you love is full payment, and the monetary side of things really doesn’t come into play.
How much does happiness cost? Does it pay dividends? Simple answers: Happiness is priceless and it pays dividends every day, every minute and every second :-).
Don’t worry about the monetary part, if it is what she loves to do. Be happy, and enjoy the fringe benefits.
–C8j
Maybe you both shouldn’t look at it as purely a financial investment. Your wife’s happiness is not a stock or mutual fund that you “invest” in and see the vaule appreciate over time.
We both LOVE what we do, but as you can see on our blog we took a huge financial hit in order to be able to do it. Although it is financially tough at the beginning, being able to wake up and not feel like I’m apart of the “rat race,” and knowing that I won’t feel like that ever in my life is worth more than the loans we’re paying.
You wife can apply to be an assistant teacher. She’ll get paid (reduced salary, of course), and really figure out if that’s what she wants to do.
Things to consider if working for the school system.
If you have kids in school, your schedule is the same as theirs.
You get two or three weeks off at the end of the year.
You get spring break off.
You get the summer off.
Usually inexpensive benefits.
Stable employment.
My wife is the cafeteria mgr at our school system. She used to make six figures but we feel like being available for our kids is the most important thing. Working for the school system was the best fit for us.
Good luck on whatever your heart tells you to do! Every once in a while you get lucky and work for a company that will pay the full cost of picking up a masters!
Everybody has their own tolerance levels…some people can go their entire lives doing something they don’t enjoy for money…on the other hand, some people would work for free for something they love…It’s really a very personal decision…Whatever that decision maybe, it looks like you guys are happy, and that’s what matters!
Has she had any experience teaching? Is it at all similar to what she’s done before? The reason I ask is that my main concern would be investing 36k in a career that she hasn’t had any experience with. It’s a different equation than, for example, someone who is currently teaching getting their master’s in education.
She doesn’t have a lot of experience with teaching but has enjoyed teaching piano to children. It is definitely a risk we’ve got to consider.
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