Grad School

A part of my wife's job is continuing education. If I understand it correctly, she has to be enrolled in classes for the next 20-30 years. Currently, she's working towards her Master's degree. There's also some sort of step raise system that I don't entirely understand. What I take away from the situation is each degree means more money coming in, and I'm not opposed to that.

Unfortunately, Grad school costs money, and she's not offered tuition reimbursement in the strict sense of the word. You could argue that step benefits equate to tuition reimbursement spread out over a long time. We don't do a good job of budgeting for grad school costs, and that's something that has to change in 2011.

Over the past few months every time the subject of grad school has come up, we've had some other major financial decision hanging over our heads, and Mrs. Lwil had decided not to register that semester. This is a conversation that we should have had months ago, because I had chalked it up to her either procrastinating, or being bad with paper work, but she was genuinely trying to do her part to protect our budget!

As of February, there's a Grad School line item in our Savings allocation budget!

For me, Grad school is something I would like to do eventually. My tuition would be fully reimbursed, but I would have to pay it in advance. I also need to take and pass the GMAT before I can consider going. The GMAT scares me. While I think I write fairly well, Grammar is not my strong suit. I dread essay questions. I worry about reading comprehension because I'm a slow reader. While I think I would comprehend the passages quickly, it would take me longer than the average person to actually read it. Math was always my best school subject, but I haven't taken a math course since 1999. I'd need to re-learn all of the theories and formulas just to pass a basic test.

I have two GMAT books, and a free software program that is supposed to offer practice tests, but I wonder if enrolling in a GMAT course would be the better way to go. That would be an added expense. Aa quick Google search gives me a good place to start I think I just have to dive in and take the practice test without any prep work. That will tell me where I'm at. Now I just need to find 4 hours so to spend on this!