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?