Higher Education With A Side of Anxiety

I recently made the decision to go grad school. And y’all, it is stressing. Me. Out.

I always knew I’d go back and get my Master’s at some point. I graduated in May of 2014, currently work in public policy, and want to stay and work in that field for the foreseeable future, but it’s basically impossible to move up the public policy career ladder without a graduate degree. If I ever want to have a job without the word “assistant” in the title, I need a Master’s in Public Policy.

But, as it turns out, the decision to go back to school has only led to an endless stream of questions: Where will I apply? Where do I want to go? How much will it cost? Ohmygod, is that really how much it costs?!??!? How will I pay for it? Should I go back full-time? Or try to keep working and just go part-time?

The answers to some of these questions came more easily than others. I work in Washington, D.C. and also live in the city with my boyfriend and our extremely spoiled cat. For an MPP from a D.C. school, I’m considering two options: George Washington (my alma mater) and Georgetown. I don’t want to give up my job (or my salary), so as much as I don’t like the idea of being in grad school for three years as opposed to two, part-time it is (rest in peace, my social life).

But the cost. The cost is what trips me up. It keeps me awake at night. Tuition alone at GW? $64,000 for the whole program. Georgetown? $95,500. And guess what? If you go part-time, you’re not eligible for scholarships. Now, I know there are other schools and other programs that cost a lot more than that, and we all know that higher education on the whole is outrageously expensive. But it’s one thing to know that and another thing to be suddenly faced with the very real possibility of actually having to come up with that kind of money.

And the more I crunch the numbers, the more a larger conundrum presents itself. I am at a point in my life where my boyfriend and I know we want to get married and buy a place in the next few years. But even the small, relatively simple wedding and modest one-bedroom condo I envision will both be expensive to achieve in a city like D.C. I feel trapped in some sort of zero-sum financial crisis: Any money I save for and ultimately spend on grad school is money I can’t save for a wedding, or a down payment, or even on paying down the (manageable but not insignificant) amount of debt I have from undergrad. Opportunity costs are a bitch, y’all.

With the decision to go to grad school, I’ve had to deliberately choose to only focus my money and energy on an education that, admittedly, will greatly benefit me and my career, and it’s fallen to my boyfriend (who, apart from being a saint for putting up with me as I over think myself to death about all this, makes far more money than I currently do) to essentially save for both a wedding and a down payment all on his own. We’re not contributing equally to our relationship from a financial standpoint, and while he’s completely cool with and understanding about that, I still struggle with feeling guilty over it.

It’s okay, he tells me. You should go to grad school. You may not be able to contribute to other kinds of savings right now, but that’s okay. And even though I still stare at the ceiling at two in the morning sometimes worrying, I know that he’s right. I just have to remind myself that getting my Master’s is something that I should do and that I need to do. This education is worth it, even in the face of high costs or frustrating trade-offs or relatives tapping their feet waiting for an invitation to a wedding they know is going to happen so get on with it already. The other things will still happen, in time. We’ll still accomplish the things we want to accomplish together, eventually.

In the meantime, if anyone’s looking to sell an old GRE prep book, call me.