I just finished my final class last week to complete my Master’s degree in accounting and the diploma’s in the mail so I’m finally done with school.
I like to over share sometimes when it comes to my finances so I’m going to share how much my graduate degree cost me because being informed and having more knowledge about higher education expenses is better than less.
According to Peterson’s, an educational services company, the average tuition and fees for a master’s degree at a public university is almost $30,000/year and about $40,000/year at a private university. The total tuition and fees I was charged throughout my time at DePaul for my particular program was $50,665:
I was able to get $19,024 of the cost covered by previous employers, but paid $31,616 myself. I didn’t receive any scholarships or grants but since I’m a prolific saver I had enough set aside to be able to pay tuition costs myself without any student loans. If you throw in textbooks, my total costs were probably a little over $32,000.
I left my previous employer in March 2020 not only because I wanted to take a year off work but also to focus on completing my graduate degree. Since I just graduated, I will probably be returning to the workforce in the next several months, but in order to make sure I finished graduate school sooner rather than later I knew I needed to take a year off work and that technically cost me about $125,000 in lost wages and retirement benefits. The $125,000 I gave up could also be called the hidden cost or opportunity cost of completing my degree. Some may then say the total cost of my Master’s degree is actually over $150,000 if you add the $125,000 I lost from being unemployed plus the $31,616 in tuition I paid, but I was going to take a year off work regardless of whether I was in graduate school or not.
I just mention the opportunity cost here because I think it’s important to consider all the actual and hidden costs when evaluating a situation. That’s how I usually try to approach things. Opportunity costs are hypothetical, but they’re still very relevant in making decisions.
Regardless, I would consider the cost of my Master’s degree to be the $32,000 I paid for tuition and books. Whether it was worth it or not remains to be seen.
Time will tell.
