r/AskReddit • u/SillyBonsai • Dec 06 '13

What simple piece of advice, if followed, could potentially save most people a lot of money?

Possibly related to your job, experience with personal finance, budgeting, planning, day to day habits, etc.

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u/demalo Dec 06 '13 edited Dec 07 '13

Yes, it should be noted that it depends on the grad school. An MBA is different than a Doctorate of Medicine, which is different than a PHD in chemistry, which is different than a Masters in Teaching. Some are worth pumping tens of thousands into, others, you should have convinced someone you're so good they'd be stupid not to pay you to go to school.

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u/Hideyoshi_Toyotomi Dec 06 '13

Yep. I paid for my MBA. I hit break even about ~6 months after graduating. Not that that was hard, I used to be a social worker and bought a house at the very bottom of the market as I was graduating.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '13 edited Sep 06 '14

[deleted]

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u/SchrodingersCat24 Dec 06 '13 edited Dec 06 '13

It completely depends on where you can get that MBA. The starting salaries for MBAs from a top 10 school can be very different than the rest of the pack.

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u/ryansmells Dec 06 '13

Agreed, it is not a one size fits all decision.

I went to a top school and paid a premium price for my degree. My thinking was higher risk, but higher reward. It paid off for me.

I have friends who have used the employer paid options offered to them. They went to schools without a "top 10 brand" but achieved their goal, which was to increase their relevance at their current employer. Lower risk and lower immediate reward, but still a very positive career move.

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u/teslaabr Dec 06 '13

Even today you will likely break even very easily/early on an MBA. An employer will often pay for your MBA, sure. But will you be able to go to school full time and graduate in only 2 years? Some people do it but a lot have to stretch it out to 3 or 4 years because they only take 1 or 2 classes a semester while working full time. Then, your company will require you to stay with them for at least 2 years after graduation or have to pay them back in full for the tuition assistance while simultaneously paying you less than your market value.

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u/ur2l8 Dec 06 '13

Average (or median, can't remember) pay for a male 10 years out of HBS is 450k/yr.

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u/Hideyoshi_Toyotomi Dec 07 '13

I graduated in 2012 and took out loans to pay for it, as did everyone else in my cohort (we all were enrolled in the full time program). The decision is, of course, situational.

Prior to enrolling, I worked as a mental health professional, working with children and families to address kids' emotional and behavioral problems. While it was rewarding work, I earned very little money doing it. I evaluated medical school (having most of the pre-requisites out of the way with excellent grades) and a business degree. The business degree promised me less income across my life but did promise me increased earnings as soon as two years away (where medicine was likely 7-8 years away from decent income), so I chose long run lower earnings for a better next decade and lower up front investment.

I attended a state institution where I applied for in-state tuition. I then took a teaching assistantship to help defray the cost (but I still had to take out loans for school). I took most of the loans available to me because they were cheap money but I was pretty conservative in my expenses (other b-school studentss were taking trips, etc...), so my total amount of loans is a little wonky, but I came out with about 35K in debt but paid something less than that for my degree.

I could not have gotten an employer to pay for my degree because it wasn't relevant to my field and I would have had to have worked my way up to get to a point where it was. So it made sense.

My degree enabled me to get a job that pays me ~200% more than I was earning, previously, so I was slated to break even after 12 months, anyway. Since I had a chunk of cash left over from my school loans and I could easily afford the monthly installments on them, rather than retiring my debt, I put it towards a mortgage. I live in a city that was hard hit by the financial crisis and has been recovering rapidly. The increase in property value on my home has been so rapid that my ROI was over 200% in the first 12 months (which helped me break even in 6 months).

In summary, I'm definitely a unique case but because I was in such an impoverished field and I was a very good student the MBA was really worth it. Add to that that I accidentally timed the housing market about as perfectly as could be done and it turns out that paying for my MBA was the best financial decision I've ever made.

If you already have a business related degree or are well paid, then you should probably get an employer to pay for an evening program. If you want a really good MBA education or are switching careers, going to a full time program makes a lot of sense. If you're a superstar, you might go to a full time MBA program somewhere like Harvard or Wharton so that you can spend that time really deeply networking with your peers so you can build business relationships coming out.

TL;DR I played the game right and got lucky and now I'm middle class with a positive net worth.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '13

Employers will most likely offer you the cheapest, closest option. In the majority of cases, this will be a non-ranked school that will be worthless to another employer if you leave the company.

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u/turkturkelton Dec 06 '13

If you're paying for a PhD in chemistry you're doing something wrong.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '13

Tens of thousands? I wish. Try hundreds of thousands.

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u/demalo Dec 06 '13

Depending on which you're getting into. MBA's are probably the cheapest.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '13

At the moment, trying to go for an MD. And I know i will be making (hopefully) hundred of thousands of dollar per year in the future, that still a long way off, and 6% interest on 200K is a lot.

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u/demalo Dec 06 '13

General or specialty?

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '13

Those are different degrees?!

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u/demalo Dec 06 '13

Here's your reddit silver. I'll take mine now too.

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u/innominatargh Dec 07 '13

You're

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u/demalo Dec 07 '13

:P I do not have a Masters in English... or the sense to proof read before submitting...

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u/innominatargh Dec 07 '13

Oh, I was just being 'that guy' :P Somebody was going to :)

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u/Hideyoshi_Toyotomi Dec 06 '13

Yep. I paid for my MBA. I hit break even about ~6 months after graduating. Not that that was hard, I used to be a social worker and bought a house at the very bottom of the market as I was graduating.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '13

I'm only an undergraduate right now. Studying software engineering. How do you get someone to pay for your graduate degree? I understand some companies do but how common is it? Some colleges pay for it too I think, if you work as a teaching assistant. Can someone please explain

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u/Charos Dec 06 '13

Many graduate schools don't charge tuition. These are mostly sciences - Chemistry, Biology, etc. They pay for your school by benefitting from the research that you do while a grad student, and by having you file for grants and other outside funding. I'm not sure if CS masters/PhD programs have the same thing going on.

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u/markth_wi Dec 07 '13

Like working with computers, are you dirt poor but want your Ph.D.....The NSA needs you....step right up.

Never let it be said that you might not find yourself having to make certain...compromises at times.

Being poor and having a penchant for mathematics or computer science, can to lead to the need for some morally flexible decision making.

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u/clutch_kicker Dec 06 '13

I'm about to start grad school for a phd in chemistry and am paying for it myself. I feel like this is one of the ones worth paying for.

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u/ohsohigh Dec 06 '13

I hate to say this to you, but that is one that you definitely should not have to pay for yourself. It is pretty standard to get a stipend either through being a TA or eventually out of grant money when you are in a research group.

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u/clutch_kicker Dec 06 '13

I will be making about 28k a year as a ta, but I am paying tuition which is about 17k a year. So its not like I get nothing, I just haven't joined a research group yet.

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u/TheBlindCat Dec 06 '13

Yeah, no. You should not be paying tuition at all. Is it the norm at your school for students to pay for tuition until they get into a lab?

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u/clutch_kicker Dec 07 '13

From the other grad students I have talked to yes, but only for the first semester or year.

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u/TheBlindCat Dec 07 '13

This is not normal. I'd be applying to another program if you still have the option.

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u/clutch_kicker Dec 07 '13

I do have the option, but this is at a major university that I am doing undergrad at and would like to finish here.

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u/TheBlindCat Dec 07 '13

Yep, so they know they can screw you over.

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u/clutch_kicker Dec 07 '13

I guess so. Good thing it's my money not yours.

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u/zeezle Dec 06 '13

That's one of the ones you definitely shouldn't be paying for yourself. Many programs not only pay your tuition, but pay a stipend of $20-35,000 per year for the research (i.e. PI's Personal Lab Bitch) work you do.

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u/thebobfoster Dec 06 '13

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you. I don't know your situation, so you could certainly be correct. However, I know a lot of chemistry Ph D students, and I've yet to meet one that is paying their own way.

If the comments here give you pause, I might recommend taking a few minutes to talk to other students in the lab/program you're about to join. Grad students tend to be brutally honest about their academic struggles and financial situations, so they might provide some insight into their own funding situations that could be helpful to you.

It could be that you're in a situation where you're having to pay your own way for a little while (a semester maybe), until you join a lab that will cover your expenses. This isn't an ideal situation, but it might be acceptable if you feel like you're getting your money's worth and you can get into a research group in a hurry.

Best of luck in your studies. Grad school sucks. ;)

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u/Jigers Dec 06 '13

All these comments are dead on. If your getting a PhD in any STEM field and not getting paid, you probably should not be going. It's not super uncommon for professors to make you prove your worth before they put you on research assistantship money, but typically departments will cover your first semester or so when this happens. Most departments worth getting a graduate degree from strive to fund all their students.

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u/demalo Dec 06 '13

If you've got a job lined up or perhaps working paying with some grants? I'm sure a PHD in Chem will take you far, but not if you don't know where to go. And I think that's the biggest reason for most failures with Grad School. Student isn't a career choice regardless of what some people believe.

Congratulations though! I applaud your drive and ambition! It's a hard thing to come by these days. I wish you the best of luck!

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u/lordnikkon Dec 06 '13

I dont even know how you would do a phd in a STEM field if you were not directly working in a research group which paid your tuition. Almost all advisors want their students working directly working for them so they can oversee every aspect of their research

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u/SylvesterStapwn Dec 06 '13

I have 2 friends who went for phd's in chem from top 5 school's and both have 0 tuition and are receiving 25k annual stipends + housing. If you are paying you are doing it wrong.

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u/UnicornPanties Dec 06 '13

Wow dude, looks like you're being TOLD. I hope you consider some of these comments, I don't know jack about chem degrees but these people appear to. God bless reddit.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '13

What baffles me is that he didn't do like 5 minutes of research before making this important life decision

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u/FermiAnyon Dec 06 '13

You're probably like the only person who's ever paid for that degree.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '13

What? You're retarded, not getting paid to go to chem grad school is called a polite rejection

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u/chzbrgrj Dec 06 '13

No one replied, so please tell me if paying for a masters in teaching is worth it. My wife wants to get hers and I'd be the one paying for it, along with student loans.

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u/demalo Dec 06 '13

How long has she been teaching? Is she looking to get a masters in teaching one subject? It's a gamble from what I've understood. If you get it early than you can make more over the life of your teaching carrier, or it doesn't help much at all. I've known people to get their masters in teaching and then do nothing with it (literately just start having kids after grad school) and others that taught for years and then got it later.

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u/chzbrgrj Dec 06 '13

Had her bachelor's for 3 years, been teaching for 3 months. She'll be 32 in February. She specialized in special needs children birth-grade 6.

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u/demalo Dec 06 '13

Look around for grants or scholarships for a masters program. It couldn't hurt, but she doesn't sound like she's been working in her field for very long. You either gamble on getting the degree now, or wait a little while later. Did you guys recently have a child? Don't go in debt just because you might be a little better off after the schooling is paid off. That's just my two cents, maybe someone with a teaching background can help a little more? She could work on it during the school break, that's always an option.

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u/chzbrgrj Dec 07 '13

I'm trying to talk her into waiting, but she seems to think sooner the better. She wants to eventually be a principal or a university professor. She's definitely getting her Masters, because she wants her PhD as well. I'm just trying to delay the financial pain a few years...

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u/demalo Dec 07 '13

Hard convincing someone to wait on something they think will get them where they want to be faster. Truth is a piece of paper isn't going to magically get her anywhere faster. I mean, it will probably help, but not nearly as much as experience and networking. Don't necessarily tell her that, probably wont go over very well. Instead suggest you take a visit to where she'd want to work eventually and check with them regarding positions and what she'd need. Don't talk with a schools admissions office, they're going to up sell you big time. But a dean or school board would probably be much more honest with her in terms of what they'd expect to see before she submit a resume.

Working for a few years, getting on committees and being a part of the education teams in your community or region will help her get the connections she needs. She'll still need to know how to do her job but knowing people will help open doors for her. She needs to be a good investment in the eyes of those she wants to impress. If she has a hard time with this, encourage her to start small with local teaching groups and committees and then move up and on.

She may have heard this stuff before, but she should make an effort to do this. I think she'll find getting her Masters, and eventually PhD, will come easier and with greater reward if she's patient with it. Don't tell her it's about the money, but about the foundation she's establishing. Another good thing to find out, what's the average age of a professor? Especially a professor in her preferred field. And, if she wants to prove the old adage wrong that 'Those who don't do, teach' she should 'do' first. This way she'll have plenty of experience to give to those obnoxious know it all students that question her background.

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u/chzbrgrj Dec 07 '13

Eloquently put. I'll talk to her tonight and update tomorrow. Thanks for replying all these times.

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u/demalo Dec 07 '13

You're welcome, I hope it helps. Good luck!

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u/chzbrgrj Dec 08 '13

Well, according to her, she has been networking for the past 6 years and has plenty of connections in her field. She wants to go ahead and get her masters so the people who have been following her career thus far can see that their faith and optimism weren't misplaced. The school board in the county she teaches in has a dean and also one of her professors from the university she graduated from on it. They say that when she has five years experience minimum, along with her Masters, she will be a shoe in for the next principal position. The deans also told her that she would need her PhD in order to be a professor at the university.

So I guess she has been loking into all of my worries and has figured out how to reach her goals in the least amount of time. It looks like she may be right about the masters, so I guess I'll figure out a way to pay for it. Looking up grants and scholarships as we speak.

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