Pay off loans, NP school, or specialty certificate?

[RunawayN]

Hello everybody.

If you have 7k, from say, tax returns, would you use it to

-Pay off part of your 30k student loan

-get a specialty certificate such as WOCN

-Apply and enroll in NP school around 25k

What would you do?

[NOADLS]

I don't know your exact financial position, but I would personally try to clear most of those student loans before thinking about NP education.

[joanna73, BSN, RN]

Pay loans with 80 percent, save 20 percent. Some people may not agree, but it is wise to do both. If you have an emergency, you'll need some savings.

[RunawayN]

Depends on what certification. For me, I was looking into a wound care program which costs around 7k and there are other certification classes that have that high tuition. Of course, something like a Med Surg cert will cost only 400 dollars but I want to become certified in something where i might be able to expand my career

[RunawayN]

Grad student loans carry a higher interest rate and the interest capitalizes from day one so I would use the money to pay as I go for the NP. Your other student loans probably have a lower interest rate and if subsidized the interest would not capitalize while you are in school with an approved deferment.

Also consider changing your withholding so you don't get such a large tax refund; you are simply giving the govt an interest free loan. Why not increase your take home pay and then use it to help pay all your bills now, not at the end of the year.

I've been trying to figure that out for a while now but I can't figure out how it works. As in, should I claim 6 or 7 and guess (calculate) how much will be taken out of my paycheck and deposit it into a high yield interest account?