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Hello. I plan on starting an ADN program Fall '13. I don't want to discuss the love for nursing or other intangible perks of the job - just the financial aspects. When I tell people I plan on being a nurse, they almost always say something about making great money, but is the money really that good? It's almost like some people think nurses are rich or something, but in reality it seems like they make pretty average money without 20+ experience. I'm no financial expert so feel free to correct everything I'm wrong about.
First of all, nursing school takes about 2.5 yrs. Most people I know say its a full time job and working is out of the question. Thus by pursuing nursing, one is essentially "losing" 2.5 years of pay. If you assume it takes 6 months to find a job, that is a 3 year time investment. At 15k/yr, that's 45k. With 3% compounding interest, I think it's about $50k of "lost" money. At 3% interest this is about $125/month
Now comes to cost of nursing school. Depending on the school, it can be anywhere from $10k to $30k. My cousin paid about $22k at a local health sciences college (community colleges were almost impossible to get into). At 15k, thats about $175/month to pay back loans.
Nurses start off at ~$19/hr around here (south) - about $35,500....gross $25k?
$25k gross - $2100 ($175 x 12) loans = $22,900 net. That isnt much money to live on considering all the time invested and physical/mental stress of the job. You also don't have $50,000 in the bank due to being in school. I'm not sure how long it would take to make up the $50k difference...I guess it would depend on how much money you would be making not doing nursing.
What do you think?