Tuition, how much is too much

It's super hard for to put a "price" on my happiness and future... but would YOU consider paying 100k to become Nurse Practioner in 3 years???

No, no, no. Use a loan calculator and estimate your repayment amount, and how long it would take you to pay that back and how much your monthly payment would be. That would be way too high. You're probably tacking on an additional $30-40K in interest and looking at payment around $1200/month (basically like a mortgage payment!), unless you're independently wealthy and paying out of pocket, which means you can tell me to go jump in a lake. :)

Are you a prelicensure student?

Thank you for your response! ...haha! ! eeek! $1200 payments per month. That's a ton lol but I wonder do NPs earn enough to pay it back. ..

I see you have allot of fancy letters behind your name.. what did it cost you? Or what's a reasonable amount to spend for an advanced nursing degree granted I'm not independently wealthy! lol

The ones that count for your purposes are the MSN and RN. I started off with an Associates degree (ASN) that enabled me to be an RN, that cost me $1300 out of pocket. Yes, really. Then I did a bridge to BSN, and that one cost me $9K out of pocket (student loans). Then I did an MSN in Nursing Informatics, and I think I paid maybe $2K out of pocket (no loans), the Army picked up most of the tab for that one while I was active duty.

Do a salary search in your area for Nurse Practitioner. I am not denying that the money is good, but it isn't THAT good that you can afford huge payments like that. Seriously, go to the calculator and throw some numbers in there: FinAid | Calculators | Loan Calculator

Even if you spread your payment out over 30 years, you're still paying $650/month and paying an extra $130,000 in interest! That is nuts.

I was in an MSN/FNP program for a little while, and I think the entire enchilada would have cost me about $25K - but I have my GI Bill thanks to military service, so out of pocket would have been zero. But I finally had an epiphany that I didn't want to be an NP, so I have since switched over to a Nurse Educator MSN program.

I think a lot of people are doing these direct entry programs for huuuuuuge amounts, and then getting surprised when it comes time to do loan repayment. Have you looked at scholarships, like the HRSA that requires you to work in an underserved area? NURSE Corps Scholarship Program

My ASN/RN was a paramedic to RN bridge, so it was cheap, and I had a scholarship as well as tuition reimbursement from my employer - the total tuition for that program was actually $6K or so. Same deal with the BSN - I paid $9K, the total was about $17K. The total for my MSN was $9K, the Army covered $7K of it. I have an AAS in Paramedic studies, and I also have an old liberal arts AA from 1991. lol. Those were community college degrees, so no debt their either - I paid as I went.

I totally understand the need for speed - I didn't become a paramedic until I was 31 and an RN until I was 36, so I was a late bloomer. But you're smart to not saddle yourself with a huge debt in the process. That would be awful!

Maybe I'll look into just completing a bsn at a regular state school as rn programs are greatly impacted and try to find a job where an employer might sponsor me a bit...that would really only set me back 2 years. A lifetime of debt probably isn't worth a 2 year head start....i think

Smart cookie. :) I worked as an ER tech when I was a paramedic and doing my bridge program, so my employer paid a lot of my tuition for RN. Of course, that was in 2007-2008, so things may have changed in the working world, like an abundance of tuition reimbursement, but it is worth considering!