I'm a Spartan!

I applied online to MSU via the Lifelong Education program and got my acceptance letter yesterday. It's really cool to have that to look forward to. They allow you to take any course you want to without actually having to go through the hassle of applying to the Graduate School and take the GRE and do all that stuff that goes along with it. In talking to Kathleen, the secretary of the American Cultural Studies program, I found that I can transfer these credits to the program when I finally get the application in and get accepted. Of course, I can't take all of my classes this way; that would be way too easy. But it's still easy to take them this way for as long as I can.

Now I have to decide when to apply to the school. I could apply to the school now to get accepted for the 2005-06 year but I don't know if that would be more or less advantageous when I can take the classes through the Lifelong Education program. I should probably take the GRE at the very least, so I know my score. If I tank the test I can always take it later or wait. Since I can take several LE classes and still apply them to the program requirements, there isn't as much pressure to get accepted. But it would be good to have them out of the way and be able to concentrate on school.

I realized something recently. My net take-home pay is about $36,000 per year. Maybe a touch more but that's close enough for my purposes. I can get graduate level student loans for up to $30,000 per year which are tax-free. In other words, I could get big loan and live off of it while I went to school and have the luxury of being able to concentrate soley on school and not have to worry about a job, apart from maybe a part time one somewhere. Hell, I could even get a 20 hour position here and keep my benefits and maybe end up making even more money than I do now.

I know that this money would have to be repaid eventually but it would enable me to get a Ph.D. much faster than I would get one by taking night classes only. I'd be able to take several classes per semester, rather than the one or two I'd be able to take otherwise. According to salary.com the median salary for an assistant professor (the lowest tenure-track position) nationally is $61,247. Even the 25th percentile is still at $50,043, still more than I make now as a middle-level systems administrator. For Ann Arbor specifically, the numbers are better: $64,983 and $53,095 for median and 25th percentile, respectively. If I were to get my Ph.D. in two or three years by going full-time instead of four to six years by going part time, I can be making more money faster which would in turn offset the costs of getting the loans.

I'm not making any rash decisions here, I'm simply laying out ideas to be pondered upon.