DI wrote:
I'm going back to school for a degree in Finance while still able to. Any advice for me? I hope to keep my high scores intact during the process.
Hey DI...what do you mean "while still able to"??? It's never too late. In fact, had I tried this when I was younger with lots of young children, this would have been a much more difficult process for me. Now, I have one 16 y/o left at home. We study together...and, hey...what's with this new-type studying with the TV on, the laptop in front of you, music playing in your ears through your Ipod, and receiving and sending text messages every 3 seconds??? All this while reading Giants in the Earth. I don't know how kids do it, but she's got great grades, so I shouldn't gripe....(but I do).
The financing for school was a challenge. I've had to work for less than a full paycheck the last 4 years. I did a part-time masters while still working. This last year, however, because of clinical time, my school hours are full time. I work only a few evening hours. I don't know if you read my post to another poster who is going back to school, but we are at a place in our lives where we're a generation older than you guys...so, while it was challenging...it was possible to do it without major disruption. The biggest challenge was going to COBRA for health insurance. It's expensive and has huge deductibles. That was a shock to the system.
We tried to get as much financial back-up in place while I was still working before this last year. We have some excess back-up, but we tried to do this without changing life as my 16 y/o knows it. If we didn't have her at home, we would have cut down even more. This was a temporary thing, so we didn't make permanent changes. We just did financing that we would not have otherwise done (HELOC, car loan on paid-off car, etc.). We have done this without running up utilization on cards. We decided we'd rather have it on installments than on credit cards.
I still have a couple of school loans that will report after the first of the year, so I expect my FICO to take a bit more of a hit. It has held up pretty well. I think the key is cc utilization. (Don't do it!) Also, anything you want to apply for, do it now. That way, when you're done with school, it will have aged off.
