2 full-time jobs?

[anna225]

Hi! I am wondering how likely and doable it is to work two full-time jobs as an RN?

I am currently in nursing school and will be graduating with over $200,000 in student loan debt (before interest) because of some stupid financial decisions I made. I chose to go out of state for a different major and took the wrong route on changing it. Rather than transferring back to an in-state school or even community college, I stayed out of state and somehow wound up in a private nursing school. Long story short, I am doomed when I have to begin paying my loans.

I am terrified of not being able to make my ~$2000/month loan payments working as a nurse, and I know I would not be able to live a sustainable lifestyle this way. I will be moving back in with my parents and throwing almost my entire paychecks towards loans, and I am afraid that after bills I will not have enough to make these payments. I would do absolutely anything to be able to have these loans paid off within ten years but it'll be nowhere near possible with one job in nursing.

My situation being as stressful and complicated as it is, I am having a difficult time wanting to keep going and graduate, but I know I won't be able to afford to pay off my current loans without a degree. Due to all of this, I was wondering how possible and doable it is to work two full-time jobs as an RN? I plan to work in the DFW metroplex, and my preference for my first job would be in a pediatric ER but I am open to anything, just because of my situation.

EDIT: I am still unfortunately 3 years out from graduating but am stuck in the situation I am in. I am a first generation so nobody in my family understood what I was getting myself into, so please don't judge too hard!

[Golden_RN, MSN]

I am getting my BSN. In my home state of Texas, there are basics on top of the pre-reqs required for me to get into nursing schools down there. These basics include courses such as Texas history and so on. I would be at least another two or more years behind to complete these courses. For the community college in my county, it costs roughly $5000 for one semester full-time. That would be about $20,000 to finish pre-reqs. On top of that, I would have to pray to get accepted into another nursing school on my first attempt, and I do not fully trust that I would be able to as I didn't have the best first year at the university I attended. One year at most nursing schools in the state also would wind up to cost about $20,000. This total would be around $60,000, which is substantially cheaper, but only if I was to get accepted into another nursing school. Where I am now, so long as I don't fail my nursing classes, I am ensured to complete my degree.

While I do want to get out of the hole I'm in, I don't trust that everything would turn out better by changing schools. I am ultimately afraid of not being accepted into another nursing school on my first try, and therefore I'd have to begin paying my student loans after the sixth month grace period. I cannot afford the ~$1000 a month (or more if I went to a community college for a couple years) payments right now, so I absolutely must finish or I more than likely never will.

Again, it's not a situation I WANT to be in. It's an incredibly complicated and tough situation that I got myself into by making the original decision to go out of state when I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life. I have accepted the situation I am in, I just fear the payments I will have to make in the future and want to know what would be my best options for attack, which was the purpose of this post. My situation is 100% my fault and I accept it, however I was never educated by advisors and counselors on what I was getting myself into - rather, I was just encouraged to go to a school I wanted to and pay later. It's ultimately my fault for making the decision, but the government's also for allowing such outrageous costs for an education when compared to just decades ago.

When you are looking at the cost of the community college ($5000/semester), are you looking at just books & tuition, or are you including living expenses? I have never heard of a jr college costing so much. That is almost the cost of a state university in California. I just want to make sure you are making informed decisions with the correct information.

[Megan1977, MSN, EdD, RN]

Your logic for remaining where you are and getting into another $100k of loans is short-sighted. You are getting into loan territory for an MD degree, but you will only be a nurse with limited earning capability. And this is a road of no turning back. Even if you go bankrupt you will still have $200k in student loans. You will not be able to sustain working 2 fulltime nursing jobs for 10 years. And think about the impact of that on the rest of your life. What if you decide to marry and want to start a family? You are also putting your parents at tremendous financial peril by having them cosign these loans.

Move back home, finish an associate's degree in nursing the cheapest way you can find. Taking another year now is far better than tacking on ten years of slavery to loans that will destroy your future. If you get a hospital job, many of them offer tuition reimbursement to complete a BSN. My hospital does. I have coworkers who finished their BSNs through Western Governors, all online, and for less than $10k. Once you are in a job, it doesn't matter where you get the degree from.

Another thing to consider is to move to an area that is underserved, and gets special consideration for student loans. I work at Dartmouth Hospital in NH, and it counts as a rural, underserved hospital, even though it is a level 1 trauma center connected to an Ivy League school. Th ere is a program here where you make a certain number of loans payments, and the rest is forgiven. It's a federal program.

I agree 100%. Stop digging your financial hole deeper.

[LPN1118]

Are you able to work full time while going to school? I know here in CT after you pass a nursing class or 2, you can take the state exam for CNA. IF you can get a full time CNA job somewhere, maybe you can eventually get tuition reimbursement if you still have a few years of classes left.

[brandy1017, ASN, RN]

Also you said you have to pay back the Parent Plus loans and they are close to $100,000. The truth is they are not legally your loans. They are legally your parents loans. While you may have a verbal agreement to pay them back, it is not legally binding and you may like many others before you find that you simply cannot afford to pay them off at least for now. I think you should talk to your parents about them starting to make the payments because I'm pretty sure the interest is accruiing and capitilizing (increasing the debt) the whole time you are in school or not. In the future you can pay them back as you are able.

They are adults who raised you and work and probably own a house and should be able to know the consequences of taking out student loan debt. They should have read the fine print. It is an unfortunate situation but the sooner someone starts paying on those parent plus loans the better! At the very least someone should be paying the interest each month so the loan doesn't grow larger, but truthfully you would want to be paying off part of the principal as well to get the loan paid off eventually. It will probably turn out like a mortgage where it may take 20 plus years to pay off but better to start now than delay and it just keep growing.

[Orion81RN]

I have $90,000 already racked up from prior schooling. I took (most of) the pre-reqs required for the nursing school I anticipated on going to and they don't transfer well to any schools in-state back home, so I would have to start from pretty much scratch and take about four years. The one school I could and did transfer to and have most credits transfer was this private nursing school. This school I'm currently attending takes students directly out of high school, however I was only able to be a year ahead because they have nursing classes and clinicals for three years. I couldn't jump ahead on those.

Basically, it would be even more expensive and time-consuming to transfer and go to a community college at home for two more years then onto an in-state nursing school than to just finish what I got myself into. It's a sticky situation overall and I am stuck in it regardless.

Your math is not adding up. Get out of that school now and get your ADN. The way my school worked was after the first year you were eligible to sit for the NCLEX-PN, work as an LPN while continuing into your second year. So you could start making money before you're an RN. It really shouldn't cost you more than 10k to continue toward a BSN. And you may even need to put that on hold until you've worked as an RN for a bit, paying off loans.

How young are you? If you get out of that school now and into a community college and live at home a couple years, you can crawl yourself out of the hole. You can't afford to have the mindset of, "it will take too long to get my degree that way.* Get out of that school ASAP.

[NurseSpeedy, ADN, LPN, RN]

Thank you for giving me this information rather than only telling me to escape what I was in. I will definitely look into an ADN, I have just heard horror stories about it being more difficult for them to get jobs as opposed to those holding a bachelor's so I have never put much thought into it.

Job availability is location specific. As long as you aren't too picky about where you want to live, then there's definitely jobs out there for ADNs. Bridging over with an RN to BSN online program later would be a lot less initial debt and you'll be making decent money since you'll already be working as an RN.

$200k student debt would give me chest pain. The stress alone would be a health hazard.

[kbrn2002, ADN, RN]

That student debt load isn't sustainable on a nurse's wages. If there is any possible way of transferring to a lower cost school do so as soon as possible. The savings would make it worth adding another year to schooling in case your prereq's don't transfer over.

You have a long way to go before you even get to the point of earning serious money. First you need to graduate and pass the NCLEX before you can even get a job and the new grad market isn't always friendly. Finding two full time jobs whose hours work together will be a major headache and while you are all gung-ho about doing it now try to imagine how you'll feel doing it for years. Even if you manage this difficult feat you will be miserable. You would be working insane hours just to make loan payments. Forget basic living expenses. Are you really prepared to live with your parents for 10 years? Do you think it's fair to them to expect them to keep paying all of your living expenses for the foreseeable future? Think about that before you get any further in the hole.

[Nunya, BSN]

Here's an idea to dig yourself out.

You get 1 year of RN experience, in a "in-demand" speciality (if you're fortunate), and work 1 job as a new graduate, maybe pick up some OT.

Two jobs as a new graduate will be completely overwhelming.

Then, at the year mark, if you aren't contractually obligated to the facility to stay, you begin travel nurse life. Depending on specialty and agency, you can make over $8000/month, working 4 12's per week. Most travel RN's will exceed 100K/year. Just got to play your cards right, and research. And you'll get to play and work all over the country.

This is what some people have done. Put your time in as a grad, then hightail it out of there for more lucrative opportunities. Keep in mind, being a traveler can have a lot of difficulties attached to it. But, it will get your out of debt chains. Consider it!

I know someone who traveled in Houston. Her company gave her something like $3000/month for housing, she paid $300 for a room from Craigslist and pocketed the rest. This was in 2013.

[Nunya, BSN]

I wasn't aware epilepsy could go away after diagnosis....

Whether she is still having seizures or not the military will never take her. The Public Health Service probably won't either. I'm former military. FYI, right now the annual pay for a 2nd Lt without experience is $36,418/year. Take home pay for TX ( no state income tax) is $1149.86 (every 2 weeks). Now there is a stipend for housing and looking at what it's projected to be for my area it's definitely doable, so theoretically that $1149 (2298/month) goes to bills, car etc. But there are disadvantages to being in the military....

[Nunya, BSN]

So not all OT is at least time and a half?

I've never worked anywhere where it's NOT time and a half. I worked at one hospital that when they were really desperate they gave bonuses in addition to time and a half, up to $150 for a 12 hour shift.

[TNT_RN09, BSN, RN]

Work a full time job and then obtain a agency job and pick up shifts with the agency. You will make more money and your schedule will be more flexible

[Studentluck]

I suggest you take the loss of the money you've spent elsewhere. Move back home right now and start at a local nursing program so you are only accruing an additional 20,000 and not 100,000. You can work while in school and live at home and start paying for school as you work so you don't get out of school swimming in crazy debt.