Advice Wanted- Accelerated BSN/MSN vs. ADN Cost

kayji, BSN · Jul 29, 2020

I think it's a very personal choice, so it's tough to say what everybody else was thinking when they gave you advice, but I'll tell you why I choose an expensive ABSN over the local community college ADN. It came down to cost and timing. The ABSN program was 12 months and I could start right away. The ADN program was 24 months and had about a 2 year wait list. Even if you are able to start an ADN program immediately, that still means it will take 12 more months to start working as a nurse. That's 12 (or 36 with the wait list) months you could be making RN salary. So, the "cost" of the ADN program would also include about $60,000/year you could have made if you were working.

Of course, where it gets really personal is in the issue you described - can you afford the loan payments at the end? If it's much easier for you to live another year as a student than it would be to make the loan payments, that will probably influence your decision more than the upfront consequence of waiting another year to start working. I was fortunate enough to only need about $12,000 in loans, if I needed more, I might have made a different choice. I have seen a few employers advertising loan repayment as an incentive, but the $10-15,000 will only make a small dent loans if you need the full amount.

TheSpecialist · Aug 3, 2020

Hi! Your story sounds very similar to mine. Going back for nursing as second career and I’m deciding on ABSN. Reason is I have a child and don't want to waste time always going back to school. Just one and done. Also, here in NYC program will run me around 55-60k. My current employes has paid all my pre reqs and covers about 20k of the total tuition cost. I will be paying cash the rest. The last thing I want is to have loans and debts after I finish school. If you can wait and save money and pay off your other debts I will greatly advise it. In the long run youll feel so much better about finishing school debt free!

Y'all · Aug 4, 2020

On 7/29/2020 at 12:16 PM, kayji said:
I think it's a very personal choice, so it's tough to say what everybody else was thinking when they gave you advice, but I'll tell you why I choose an expensive ABSN over the local community college ADN. It came down to cost and timing. The ABSN program was 12 months and I could start right away. The ADN program was 24 months and had about a 2 year wait list. Even if you are able to start an ADN program immediately, that still means it will take 12 more months to start working as a nurse. That's 12 (or 36 with the wait list) months you could be making RN salary. So, the "cost" of the ADN program would also include about $60,000/year you could have made if you were working.
Of course, where it gets really personal is in the issue you described - can you afford the loan payments at the end? If it's much easier for you to live another year as a student than it would be to make the loan payments, that will probably influence your decision more than the upfront consequence of waiting another year to start working. I was fortunate enough to only need about $12,000 in loans, if I needed more, I might have made a different choice. I have seen a few employers advertising loan repayment as an incentive, but the $10-15,000 will only make a small dent loans if you need the full amount.

Thank you so much for sharing your insight. I don’t know many people who have gone back to nursing school so I’m alone in this journey. My accelerated programs would be 16-20 months depending on which one vs. 2 years (with summers off in CC). It’s such a hard decision. I think if the accelerated prices weren’t so high I’d go for it. I wanted to start out working part-time as my son isn’t even one so I don’t know how hard those payments could be to make for us depending on what I make out of school.

You got me thinking and I appreciate it so much.

Y'all · Aug 4, 2020

On 8/3/2020 at 5:53 AM, TheSpecialist said:
Hi! Your story sounds very similar to mine. Going back for nursing as second career and I’m deciding on ABSN. Reason is I have a child and don't want to waste time always going back to school. Just one and done. Also, here in NYC program will run me around 55-60k. My current employes has paid all my pre reqs and covers about 20k of the total tuition cost. I will be paying cash the rest. The last thing I want is to have loans and debts after I finish school. If you can wait and save money and pay off your other debts I will greatly advise it. In the long run youll feel so much better about finishing school debt free!

Thank you this! We are so tight on one salary currently anyway so there’s no way I’m going to be able to put enough away to pay for accelerated program. That probably answers my question that I should stick with the very reputable CC and spend under 10k total.

allnurses Guide · Aug 4, 2020

ASN and then do an ASN to MSN bridge program once you have a couple of years under your belt. Good luck!