How to be Financially Smart While Growing your Human Capital

A former colleague of mine reached out to me about my thoughts on looking for programs and paying for post-graduate education. Being on my third Master’s program, I wanted to share what I know, and I thought that it might be of more general use:

Hi Edgar. I haven't spoken to you for some time, but I wanted to ask you if you know of scholarships or funding for masters programs. You are always in school! I'd like to go but want to pay as little as possible.

Howdy! Cost is a huge consideration in graduate school. Depending on what you're looking at doing, there are different ways to fund it. It will depend on the course of study or the institution though. When I first went to grad school at Kansas State for English, they offered a funding package in exchange for teaching a couple classes. I received a tuition waiver and a stipend of 8000 a year. It wasn't enough to live on, and when the roommate I had in my shitty basement apartment moved out, I had to borrow money to live. There was a huge gap in the time commitment and the compensation, but for someone who was young and just out of undergrad it wasn't an issue. The best situation was career tech, but that probably won't be replicated any time soon, and I do wish that I came out with credentials from an institution with a better reputation than DeVry. (On a side note, I'm not sure how many of our peers ended up with a job in any way connected to the industry we trained for. I myself only got lucky with the agency I interned at). For more education post-career tech, I was really conscious of how much it would cost because I was still paying off the loans of about 10K I took to get through my funded grad school program in English. The first classes I took were at the city colleges, and then when I moved closer to work, at the community college. These are great deals and I had good teachers. The books for a couple of classes cost more than the class itself.

For master’s work, the consideration is different. I went looking for business oriented classes that had an emphasis on nonprofits. There are a lot of degrees that hit on this - MPA, MNA, etc. I was attracted to schools using the MBA with a nonprofit concentration if I ever wanted to move away from nonprofit work. One of the things that attracted me to Concordia was its sticker price. It was less than 30K for the whole degree, and there were low barriers to entry in terms of testing. I hadn't taken the GMAT and I hadn't taken the GRE since 2003. Other schools had much higher sticker prices. For example, De Paul's school of business was 80K. But the important thing to know is that schools are in competition for students. I talked to the admissions folk, and talked about how price sensitive I was, and they offered 20% off, so it would be ONLY 60K. Which was still too much. I wanted a better name than Concordia, but it wasn't worth doubling the price for me.

The same thing is happening with Roosevelt. Based on previous work, I got something like a 2000 / semester scholarship. The problem is that it only applies to full time work.

Some people have funding options, such as a program through work. I have a buddy where his work paid his whole MBA. If you're going for a doctorate, then in a lot of fields you can get more robust funding than I did for K-State, you immerse yourself in the life of scholarship.

A lot of doctorates don't give you any funding, and you end up paying for them wither through loans or out of pocket. I would do a lot of research on the job market and the utility of those degrees before I went that route - making sure that it was needed in industry. One of the main reasons I didn't continue on in English was that it was very narrow. The PhD just made you qualified to teach English, and there are very few of those positions relative to the number of terminal degrees granted.

I myself have relied on borrowing. Right now, I have about 26K of loans outstanding. But my wife and I both have professional jobs where we're able to pay that down faster than the normal repayment schedule. I have something like 250-300 credits, and my wife has taken post-grad classes, so though I am price-conscious, it has been a huge benefit to our personal finances.

That said, it is not all costs. As much as I like learning for learning's sake, more education has helped me professionally, as has my wife's. The main difference is that being a bit older with more financial burdens, the education I do undertake is more targeted towards an end goal that is instrumental in that it will be useful in terms of a job.

I am looking at moving on to my PhD in a couple of years, as that is a personal goal, but I won't do it unless I'm funded, and that's a big commitment.

If you have any questions, let me know. And good luck!

Edgar! Thanks so much for your message. I was wondering of it mattered if I went with a cheaper option. I finished the program and am now an RHIA, CPC, and CPMA. I am working in compliance for a health system. I'm a senior auditor but I think I may need a masters to move to the level of leadership i aspire to. I was considering a program at Benedictine, which is about the same price as a lot of programs. Have you known anyone to go there? I am going to check out Concordia.

The answer is "It depends" because so much of it is who you know and your credentials are secondary as long as you have them for most jobs and organizations. Like, I'll have that MBA behind my name forever, and where I got it is less important than that I have it (barring exceptions at the really elite levels where you'll get judged for not having gone to a top 10 school). Just make sure the school and the program have the proper accreditation for what you want to do. Otherwise, going cheaper won't really hurt. The big thing is that your programs will be an introduction to others in your field locally, so it increases the circle of people you know.

Thoughts on "The Chapo Guide to Revolution"

My parents on their shelf when I was growing up that any number of Comedy books that were sitting

around and I picked up some of them when I was older and I read them but the problem with these

books when I picked up and read them was that they were really made for the moment. The one I

remember the most was his book called “real men don't eat quiche” which was essentially this

masculine Panic thing that must have happened sometime in the early 80s and was trying to

redefine what men were women coming into the workforce and more jittery quality of his push back

but they made it funny by having this is what real men are. It was of a time where the best thing you

really compare those to are these toys such as the GI Joe or the He-Man characters that kids could

buy and they were these all hyper masculine things to the similar movies - freaking Conan the

Barbarian whatever etcetera all the way through Top Gun to this is and is Backlash to femininity.

And this is all to say that is book I have in front of me the Chapo Guy to Revolution a Manifesto

against logic facts and Reason by the Chapo Trap House guys is a very much of that same sort of

demode book that does catch a Zeitgeist very well. I think the problem will be taking this book up and

looking at it into 5 or 10 years and looking back and asking what are these Guy saying because

references are all very current. If it was good it was fun to read I enjoyed it very much because it's

written towards me. I’m the audience. I'm younger, male, I'm on Twitter a lot though I don't listen to

the podcast which I think is a key part of the audience since you're going to have to spread out and

go hey here you read this book you don't want it to be just a small subset of the people who are

already listener's I don't know how big that audience is.

But even with that consideration the problem is that there's few too few people who know who

chapotraphouse is and if they do they have a preconceived notions about who they are and what

they stand for. The book can be for people who don’t know who Chapo is. I was reading book

laughing and smiling and the thing is my wife at ask me who is that ? My wife is smart same age

range but she's not on Twitter. She doesn't listen to podcasts specifically the trap house or anything

else so she is going to be this whole milieu.  The problem with the book itself is that it is a lot of inside

jokes but is not going to be expensive in terms of making the audience everyone else.

The book itself is fun to read is interesting is very quick read; the illustrations are interesting they're

good to look at the only work really well with the black and white.  The only real criticism of it would

be that it is more critical of existing culture that it is about laying A positive program For for what what

if you look like and not to be too critical of the Traphouse guy but it is it is in criticizing the book that I

kind of wish they'd written and not in the book they did write so the book they did write was

enjoyable.

If you are younger left wing I would say this is a book that you would read and you enjoy this is a text

for the revolution beyond the Bernard would have won Revolution the Chapo Revolution. Join it; be

part of it; be one of us.

On Mazzucato's "The Entrepreneurial State"

In this book, Mazzucato makes the argument that the state is the best actor to be the one to make long-range investments in technology, as private actors under capitalism are too focused on short term rewards to really be able to focus on real blue ocean development.

In fact, she argues, some of the more celebrated examples of private innovation can be linked to research and investment the state has made. This process of celebrating the private corporation has a way of erasing what the state has done and allows political rhetoric to attack research the state does. Her best example in the book is the Apple iPhone, where she looks at the basic research from the internet to mobile telephony to interface design that goes back to work governments did starting thirty or more years ago. I think as a reader that this example is strong enough to support her basic argument, but she also continues in the book to look at solar power as another example. Because this isn’t as widespread as the iPhone and its clones, it feels like a weaker example, even if down the road it will be more prevalent than the iPhone.