Welcome to the Money Mindset Podcast with Ashley from Budgets Made Easy. Are you ready to kick off the new year? Are you tired of having the same old bills in a new year? I currently have the Kickstart bundle, which I only do once a year to start the new year to help guide you through paying off debt, saving money, and making a realistic plan for the new year that you can actually follow through with.

Because you know what? New Year's resolutions don't work. So this is an actual realistic plan that you can do and follow through with the entire year. So go check that out. It ends soon. Budgets made easy.com/kickstart. Now today's special guest is going to tell you about how she paid off $110,000 in debt in 18 months, but not just that. Now that's pretty amazing too.

But what we're really gonna dive into today is switching careers, getting a higher education as an adult and not, you know, paying very little for it or maybe even making money. She actually made money on her master's degree and she's going to get her doctorate degree for free. Now this took time, it took a lot of practice and trial and error with her bachelor's degree and now she helps employees within her corporation advance their careers and make know their options when it comes to going back to school as an adult.

Because it's not easy, right? You're not a traditional student. You've got a job, you've got kids, you have other responsibilities, but you wanna advance your career. Maybe you wanna do something different. So she gives you a lot of information about how to do that with very minimal debt. And you know what? Your employer may even offer benefits just like these and you don't even know it.

So let's save V to Caitlin's episode. Let me know on Instagram. Tag me, let me know if you want to go back to school as an adult. So we're not talking traditional student fresh outta high school, we're talking about adults, we're talking about you. Do you wanna go back to school? Do you wanna do something different with your career,

with your life? It's never too late and it doesn't have to cost you a fortune. There are so many options out there now so that you can do it as a working adult, a working parent. So let's dive into her tips and strategies to help you do it without racking up a whole bunch of of debt. Hello Caitlin. Thank you so much for being with us today.

I am so excited about this topic. This is not something that we've discussed before on the Money Mindset Podcast and it's all about like career change and you know, using services and resources to your benefit so that even as an adult you can go back to school relatively cheaply, maybe even for free. And you're gonna kind of give us some background about your journey,

how you've done this and how you help others do this now in your full-time job. So, very interested to hear more details about it. But before we dive in, can you just give us a little bit of background about yourself and you know, your journey cuz you've made off a lot of debt as well. Yes, and thank you. I'm so glad to be here.

I'm such a fan. So my story kind of starts. So I'm, my name's Caitlin. I live in Virginia and coastal Virginia. I have a husband and three children who are 14, 12 and 11. I had to think about that cuz two of them just had birthdays two weeks ago. So 14, 12 and 11. I have three jobs.

I, I have three jobs because we paid it off over a hundred thousand dollars in debt over about 18 months. Oh man. So we really, and we're average income earners. My husband is a police officer. I do where I work in human resources for a large healthcare organization, which I'll go into a little in a little more detail a little later on.

But yeah, I, we started our debt journey just like most people finding, you know, those big names, Dave Ramsey, Susie Orman, all those, those big names that are out there. That started in about March of 2021. So we were about halfway through the pandemic and we were just, I mean we were very normal people and we had where the bulk of our debt was student loans.

So I was a, I started as a traditional college student. So I graduated high school, I started at a community college. My parents paid for my first semester at community college. But then life happened. I moved in with my boyfriend, broke up with my boyfriend, and got married very shortly after that. Actually we have a large family and a short amount of time.

Our kids are very close in age. And during that time I started and stopped going back to school probably five or six different times. So I would get a wild hair and enroll in a program and then life would be overwhelming because I was working and trying to raise a family and do all the things. And I would change my major because I really didn't know what I wanted to do.

When I grow up I, I still kind of don't know what I wanna do, but I like what I'm doing now, so we're gonna go with it. I thought initially that I wanted to be a teacher and turns out I don't like teaching kids. I like my own kids, I like kids in general. But being in, I did some student teaching,

being in a classroom all day was not going to be for me at least. You found that out early. Yes, I am very, I mean I wish I would've found it out a little earlier than I did, but that's okay. I mean I was a history major, I was a political science major, I was an education major, I was a finance major at one point.

I worked for a bank for 15 years. So I was just kind of all over the place and not really sure what I wanted to do. So of course during that journey I racked up a lot of student debt. So it ended up being over $60,000 for my, my student loans. And it makes me sick when I think about it because I actually started at a community college.

I ended up finishing an associate's degree. So the bulk of that 60,000 was just in the last two years of finishing my bachelor's degree. And it took me a longer time to finish it because like I said, I was raising kids, my husband was working, he has a very hectic schedule because he is in law enforcement and it was just a crazy time.

So that brings me to March of 2021. Along the way of also racking up the student loan debt, we had started leaning into our credit cards because we didn't have an emergency fund, we had bought a house, things broke, we had a custody issue with my oldest child. So just kind of putting all this stuff on a credit card, we ended up with over a hundred thousand dollars in debt and my husband went back to school as well to get his degree.

So just a lot happening. And then March pandemic hit, that was fine. March of 2021. I was just sitting there and I was so tired of paying bills, we were making decent money but we never had any money, which was super frustrating. So we felt like we could never get ahead, we never missed a payment. We were always on time,

bills were paid. But it was just this feeling of, you know, everything coming in is going right back out. There's no room for savings, there's no room for anything. And I remember thinking in March of 2021, like we kept saying over that decade, 11 years that we've been married, we'll eventually we'll be able to save, we'll be able to pay this off eventually we'll be able to save for college eventually.

All right, so I am so sorry I lost you. The internet went out in my office so I'm gonna have to edit this together if the sound sounds different. That is why. So I lost you at where you were talking about how you were, you guys, you know, we're average family and you wanted to be able to save and it was like March, 2021 I believe.

And you were talking about like just that feeling of feeling like you can never get ahead and it's just like comes in and goes out. So that's where I lost you. So I don't know how much you talked after that, but then let's Pick look up there. Yeah, definitely. So I think I was pretty much wrapping up what I was saying there was,

you know, March, 2021 I put all of our debt down on paper. We were finding we had more debt than we really realized and I was really sickened by the fact that I had spent $60,000 on my undergrad degree. So that's when I started thinking. And on top of that, my student loans hadn't come due yet. Obviously one because we were in the middle of the pandemic and they were paused.

But also because I had started and stopped so many programs, I wasn't already in the typical six months deferral and March of 2021 was that kind of realization, even though we're still in the, the student loan repayment pause and all of that, but these are gonna come due soon and when that happens we are going to be in the red every month. We're not going to be able to make all of our payments.

There's just, there's just no way. So that's when we started paying off our debt. My husband is very lucky, there's no shortage of overtime and law enforcement. So he was working and the way his schedule works, he works 60 hours one week and 24 hours the second week. So especially on those weeks where he was only working 24 hours, he was able to pick up massive amounts of overtime,

extra duty to help us pay off our debt. That's when I picked up a couple of part-time jobs. I had transitioned in January of 2021 from working in a, in training. I worked in learning and development at a financial institution and I moved over to learning and development at a healthcare organization. So I actually was able to go back to the bank and work part-time doing some contract work for them,

writing procedures, which was great. And I did that for a while to help pay off our debt. But then I also got an opportunity to start teaching a bulletproof manager class for a contractor I had worked with at the bank. So picked that up and then transitioned away from writing those procedures and was able to find another job more in my area of expertise that I wanted to grow in.

And I now teach, I'm a college instructor at a local university. So I do all these things and I actually teach a career orientation seminar. So my instruction is all based on job Searchie, using your education to find a really good job maximizing that education and things like building your resume, interviewing tips and skills and things like that. So I've kind of been able to come full circle there and use all of this information to help other people find affordable ways to get education.

So back in March of 2021, when I was looking at that $60,000 figure that I spent on my degree, I knew that I wanted to continue my education. I almost had to continue my education because I needed my loans to stay in deferral. So I knew that I wanted to find a way to make it as affordable as possible. I thought maybe if I get a master's degree that 60 60,000 won't seem so bad,

right? That I spent that much money and I was listening to some other podcasts and I remember the co-host of the podcast had worked in higher education. I can't remember exactly what he did, but he said, I remember him saying like, these colleges have money, they have endowments, they have grants. You just have to look for it and you have to ask for it.

Now circling back to when I started my journey at community college, my parents were both successful without having a college education. So it was a different time. They were in different industries and they really didn't understand, you know, filling out the fafsa. So when I started college, they just paid in cash for that first term and then I was kind of on my own,

but I was still a dependent student because up until 24 you're considered a dependent regardless if your parents claim you on their tax return or not, there's still that e expected family contribution that the government says that, you know, if you're under 24 years old, not married and you know there's other caveats that go along with it, but your family's expected to give us their tax information so we can figure out how much they should be paying for your college.

Well that's not a reality for a lot of people. A lot of people's parents can't pay for their college or maybe they're not comfortable giving that information. I know for me, I think I asked my mom one time for her tax information and she was like, you don't need that. Not understanding that yes, I, I really did need it. So I kind of went through taking out student loans.

Eventually I became a independent student when I got married. I got married young, we got married when I was 22. So at that point that's when I decided to go back to school because I could apply for financial aid, but I really didn't read through my financial aid package. Yes, I got a few Pell grants here and there, but most of it was student loans.

Some of them were un unsubsidized, some of them were subsi subsidized. Didn't really understand any of that. Which is crazy because I worked in lending for like four years, but it just, it didn't seem like real money to me, right? Oh they were paying for my education, I'll worry, I'll have a high paying job when I come out of this,

which I think is myth number one that we need to address is getting a college degree does not guarantee you a high paying job. It almost doesn't even guarantee you a job that you can live on your own way. Very true. So just thinking through all of this stuff, I went back, I started researching, I research, research, research. And this is another tip that I just wanna share with everybody is when you were going back to school,

whether you were a traditional student or you were a non-traditional student, you need to be an informed consumer. Do not rely on schools to tell you what you need to do. And I say this, not because schools are bad, but because they are businesses, whether they are for-profit or non for not-profit, non-profit does not mean that you are holy and righteous or moral.

It is a tax designation and I'm sure that people will fight me on that. But it is a, a tax designation that you have to funnel your profits through a certain, a certain avenue, a certain route. You have to do certain things with them, but they're still a business. They're there to make money, they have employees to pay. So of course if you're asking an advisor or an enrollment counselor questions,

they are going to paint the very best picture, right? Because they want you to enroll. They need those numbers. And most of those enrollment counselors are also, they're, they're, they're paid via how many people, like they have numbers that they have to hit. So they're not gonna share with you. Like for example, if you are going to an online college,

they're going to paint the best picture, right? And then when you get into class you realize, oh well I actually have to attend a lecture at six o'clock on Mondays. I didn't realize that. I thought this was online. Well yeah, it's online, but you have a schedule you have to follow. So there's all sorts of things that you need to research to make sure that you're finding the right school first off.

And part of that comes down to researching to find the right program that fits your career goals and also researching to find the more affordable program. Now I'm not really talking to people who want an Ivy League education cuz that's a whole different arena. But if you are an adult and you wanna go back to school, maybe you want to excel in your current career,

maybe you wanna make a complete career change, make sure you do the research to find out what you need before you dive into a program. And I'll give you an example of this. As I was talking to someone a few weeks ago who wanted to be a manager of a clinical research facility and she was going back to school to get a degree in management and leadership,

that sounds like a great plan, but if you actually research the career field, they're probably gonna promote from within. So they're gonna promote a clinical researcher to run that facility. So to be a clinical researcher, you need a degree in biology, nursing, chemistry, you know, just depending on what it is. So her goal of getting a degree in management and leadership,

that's great, that's fantastic, but it wasn't necessarily going to be the best path for her to get that job. Those are the kinds of roles that aren't just going to hire just because you have a degree, you've gotta have that experience in the field as well. So a lot of it goes back to researching your career field. But then again those programs itself compare programs,

price shop, there are programs out there. When I was researching my mba, they were programs that were $60,000. They were programs that were $6,000. That's a huge difference. And actually when I was researching my programs, I started with a master's in education and instructional design because learning and development is the field that I'm most, most comfortable with and that's where I want my career to grow.

So I did a lot of research, I found a lot of different programs and I found a school that was actually, they did competency-based learning. So this is where you can, it's self-paced. You p pay a flat fee for a specific term and then you can take as many courses as possible. So I was able to move really quickly, complete my master's degree in one term.

The cost of the term was like $4,000. And then I leveraged my education benefits through my employer and then I also applied for scholarships and I ended up making money on that degree. So I have two master's degrees and between the two, I completed both of them within a year and was able to profit $1,800. And that was by leveraging my tuition reimbursement and applying for those scholarships.

And I was someone who never would've thought to apply for a scholarship in my undergrad because I'm just, I'm average, there's nothing spectacular. Like I'm just a normal person, why would they give me money? But I went back to that podcast and he was like, this money is just sitting there because people don't ask for it. And I also found that to be true.

And my doctoral journey, I'm about 45% through my doctoral program, which by the time I'm done, if I've planned everything correctly, leveraged everything that I have available to me, I will come out paying $0 for this degree. Which is quite incredible because doctorates are expensive. Yeah, that's awesome. And that is a personal goal for me. It's n it doesn't really have anything to do with my career.

I've just decided that this is where I wanna go. But again, I, my tuition reimbursement benefits through my employer are fantastic. So that's another tip is if you are looking to go back to school, check with your employer to see what kind of benefits they offer. If you, if they don't consider moving to an organization that does have great tuition benefits because more and more employers are offering these nowadays because it's something that people are coming to expect.

So you can definitely find things, things to ask of going back to being a con, an informed consumer is, you know, what's the workback agreement? Because a lot of times when you leverage those benefits, there is a period of time that you have to stay with the organization or you'll have to pay them back. What are the tax implications? So typically the government gives 5,250 tax free,

but anything over the 5,002 50, typically the employee is responsible for paying the taxes on that. So seek advice from a tax advisor. I'm not a tax, I'm not a tax professional, but I do know just a little bit about that. So make sure you know, you're looking at all those different details but, and I completely forgot where I was going with that.

But yes, definitely like look for those tuition benefits but also look to see what's available. A lot of colleges have internal scholarships you can apply for, they have grants you can apply for. Oh this is where I was going. So when I applied for my doctorate degree, my tuition benefits were not going to cover the entire thing. So I called the fi,

I called my financial advisor cuz typically a college will assign you a financial advisor if they don't assign you one. There's an office that you can call, make friends with those people, they can help you. They know where the money is and they can help you find it. And that's exactly what happened at my college is I just started asking, you know,

is there any kind of work study program? Can I teach a course while I'm going through this? What, what kind of grants do you have? Is there any money anywhere? And you know what she said, yeah, there is. And I was able to get a grant to fund the rest of my education so that I didn't have to come out of pocket.

So I never would've done that with my undergrad degree. I never would've asked anybody, I never would've called up anyone. So you really do have to be an informed consumer and you have to look for it. And then external scholarships, those are available all over the place. You do have to do a little bit of research but, and you also have to apply for a lot for every one scholar,

for every 10 scholarships you apply for, you might get one, but a lot of times that's worth it. So take the time to comb through things, research, talk to your financial advisors at your, your your higher education institution. So there's just a lot of options out there that you can leverage. So some other things that I learned about during all of this time was,

you know, we all know community college is a, a great inexpensive way to get your general education requirements done. A lot of states actually offer free community college, my state doesn't, but they do have some additional programs and grants that they can give you and it's just more affordable. You can always start there. But other things that I found are things like sophia.org

or study.com and these websites will allow you to take gen ed courses study, I think sophia.org, you, it's like a subscription basis. So you can subscribe for four months and you can knock out your, your English comp one and two, your bio 1 0 1 and 1 0 2, like your very basic gen ed requirements. And depending on how quickly you can move through those,

you, I mean you could knock a lot out in four months and of course you can renew your subscription study.com has a very similar feel as well. And there's a few other ones out there. But again, it goes back to being an informed consumer. So talk to the school you wanna transfer to and make sure those courses transfer. There's nothing wrong with starting at a community college with the end goal of,

you know, you know, you have a local four year university that you wanna end up with, but just make sure you're taking the right classes and you're taking the right credits because this is another, another opportunity here. Another tip is when you're looking to transfer credits, a lot of org, a lot of schools were advertised, oh you can transfer up to 90 credits or you can transfer up to so-and-so.

Yes, but do those credits apply to your degree program? Is the caveat there. So most degree programs, you're going to need very specific courses. So sure you can transfer 90 credits, but are all 90 of those credits actually going to allocate in your degree program or do you just have a bank of all these credits that aren't doing you any good?

So always be an advocate and if you think you know where you wanna go, you know where you wanna end up, call that school, go to their website, find the information. I know in Virginia our community college system has a really great website where you can go in and like put the course in and it will tell you the course equivalent at like 60 of our our in-state schools,

right? Nice. So you can start to pre-plan and make sure that you're taking the right courses. Some other things to consider is if you are a traditional college student and you wanna save money. If you're at a traditional university and you, let's say you come home for the summer, you can take courses at your community college and they'll transfer back to your school.

You just have to make sure that you're talking to your advisor, that you're very clear about what your plans are. But these are all great ways that you can start to save money when you're looking at your educational cost. So yeah, just going back to comparing those programs, finding the right college for you and also finding the right fit for your lifestyle.

So many colleges now, education, higher education is changing vastly. I mean over the last decade we've seen so many online colleges, we've seen traditional colleges go to online formats to be able to reach more people. So it's definitely changing the traditional 16 week or semester is normally not good for a working adult. It's a long time to commit. Feels like you're not making any progress,

right? And going back to debt payoff, right? A lot of us use that snowball and getting those quick wins. So same thing when you're looking for an educational program is looking to see, you know, I, I'm somebody that's very behavior based, so I knew I needed quick wins. So I started at a school that had eight week classes instead of 16 week classes.

When I finally went back to finish my undergrad, the university I teach at actually has five week classes, which I was talking to a student a couple weeks ago and he was saying that's that's why I went back to school because I knew I could do something for five weeks. Like if I could just take that first step, commit that five weeks and then it'll be another five weeks and another five weeks.

And along the way he's checking those boxes or I'm a, I'm a highlighter, I love to highlight stuff off a list, right? So, but it's, it's that behavior, those quick wins. So, and colleges all over have unique formats. You could five weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, 10 weeks, 12 weeks, traditional 16 weeks,

whatever that looks like. Self-paced, which is my favorite. Self-paced does not work for everybody though because if you're somebody who is motivated by deadlines, that can be a disaster. Yes. So I always use, use caution when you're looking at self-paced programs or competency-based programs where you're pretty much on your own. I am very much like, let me do this,

let me, let me use my own timeline. I'll get it done as quick as possible. But not everybody is that way and that's okay. So it's great that there's so many different formats out there that you can choose from. So yeah, some other things, Ashley, I'm sorry, I feel like I'm just talking, talking, talking, talking.

So interrupt me at any time. No, you're fine. This is great information. Yeah, so other things that you wanna look for when you're going back to school is you wanna look at accreditation and I feel like there's a lot of confusion around accreditation because there's regional accreditation and there's national accreditation and there's a lot of negative information about national accreditation, but that's not necessarily true.

So regional accreditation is your typical kind of standard accreditation that you're gonna see at your, your co your local colleges and universities. Even your Ivy League schools. I think there's eight regional accrediting bodies that are split up through geographical areas in the United States. So you always wanna make sure that your program, that your college is accredited and that your program is accredited.

So there's that regional accreditation that most of us are familiar with. And then there's national accreditation. And the reason why people get confused is cuz you would think that national is higher than regionals, right? But it's, it's not. It's not. Oh okay. National accreditation is, you see this more in like technical programs, vocational schools. A really good example of a college that I work with that has a national accreditation is Chamberlain University Chamberlain is very much healthcare.

So all of their courses, like even when you're looking at like taking history, it has some kind of healthcare component to it. So that's really kind of your difference between your national accreditation and your regional accreditation. Regional accredited universities are gonna have more transferability between institutions because they're not so specific to the particular program or industry that they're preparing you for. So just something to think about.

There's a couple other things like regionally accredited are normally known as like those prestigious widely recognized schools. And then nationally accredited is comparing institutions across the country with similar career focus or curriculum. So going back to that nursing, art and design, that's another one. Or those skilled trades your credits are accepted at regionally accredited, they're, they're normally transferable. Like I said,

when you're nationally accredited, typically they're not gonna transfer or they might only transfer between like a nursing program to a nursing program. Okay. So sometimes nationally accredited universities are not eligible for like tuition benefits too. So again, something you'll wanna check out with your employer as well. But those are just some of the differences to look for. And like I said,

if you're, my coworker is getting her b S N, she's a, she's an rn, she doesn't have her b S N, she's working on it, she's going to a nationally accredited school because it is designed for nurses, like it is nurses in and out. So that's fine for her. However, if I wanted to be a college professor,

I probably wouldn't go to a nationally accredited school because they're going to be looking for that kind of, I hate the word prestige cuz it's not right? There's not one that's better than the other, it's just different. So make sure you're choosing the path that's right for you and your career field. Some other things. So I know I've mentioned talking about like selecting a college and how it is a business.

So just keep in mind that you have to do your own research, you have to ask the right questions. You have, I mean, questions to ask. You don't know what you don't know. So sometimes this is really hard, but one thing that I did when I was comparing programs is I found some social media groups for those schools. There's pretty much social media groups for everything.

So, and I messaged five people and one of the group about a particular program. I don't rely on comments in like advertising and things like that because people are just negative and nasty. So I just reached out to random people, Hey, what's your experience been? What do you wish you would've known before you started? What are some things that are really great about this program that you love?

You know, how has this fitting in with your lifestyle? And surprisingly, all five of these strangers responded back to me, which I really appreciate. But for this one school, all five of them were like, no, this is horrible. This is not what they said it was going to be. Like, run as fast as you can. It's been nothing but headaches and misery.

But again, it's because it's, it's very salesy, right? It's you're talking to an advisor, they're gonna sell you so that you get in and then you're kind of stuck. And we definitely don't want that. So total advocate of reaching out to random strangers on the internet who may be in a degree program that you are interested in just to get that actual feedback from people who are in it.

So that's a Great idea. I never would've thought to do that, you must be an extrovert because I never, I'm an introvert, funnily enough, I'm not, would've thought that I'm not an extrovert. And I, I laugh all the time because my background is, is teaching, training, adult education. And I, and I teach on Zoom all the time and I used to do new employee orientation where I would talk to 500 people at a time,

but I'm not an extrovert. I'm such an introvert. If we go to a party, I don't talk to anybody I like sit in the corner with, with my drink. And I just, I just, I don't know, I, I don't mind talking profe like reaching out to people, but like honestly when it comes down to it, I just wanna be in my house by myself.

But yeah, so definitely advocate for, for reaching out, getting those opinions, getting that feedback just to make sure that you are being kind of quote unquote sold what you think you're being sold. So yeah, some other things I'd like to talk about. So in my full-time job I help people find programs that align to their career goals. So make sure you really do,

and I think I touched on this already, so I'm really sorry, but make sure you do your research ahead of time to, to find that right degree program. You know, if you're going to be like a K through 12 teacher, make sure you're entering a program that's going to prepare you for your licensure. Understand what that licensure looks like. Look,

look at the big picture, not just the education program itself. Do you need to do student teaching? Are you gonna be able to take time off work to do that? So there's so many different factors that you need to be looking at when you're selecting those programs to make sure that it fits in your lifestyle as well. So yeah, I've gone on and on.

Ashley, do you have any questions for me at this point? No, I love this information. I had never, I guess I had never thought about the schools being a business. Like that's such a good point because it changes your perspective on how they are advising you and that's, that's just so crucial. So I love that piece of advice. Now you do help people in your full-time job,

it's a benefit of your employer. And so let's talk about that a little bit because some people may not realize or know if their employer has someone like you to help them figure this all out and they, they might, especially if you work for a bigger organization. I mean if you work for a smaller organization, probably not, but tell us a little bit about what you do for your organization.

Yeah, definitely. So I work for a very large healthcare organization that spans several states. We are a Catholic healthcare organization, so that puts a kind of a different light on it too. But I work in human resources and my team functions as a part of talent acquisition, which is recruitment. But we focus on helping our associates who are already with us.

So our employees that have been employed for, I mean really their benefit starts on day one. So we help them if they're maybe just getting their foot in their door in the door or they're not quite sure where they wanna go in healthcare because it is fast. We act sort of career coaches guides to help them find the right program or the right career path to get on to succeed in the organization,

to be able to continually grow because we want them to grow with us, we want them to st, we don't want them to stay in the same position forever unless that's what they want. If they want to grow and excel and get promoted, my team works with our associates just to kind of put them on the right path. We also try to help them with finding the right educational programs.

Like I said earlier, my organization has great tuition benefits, so we help them kind of find the right school that they need and then also how to maximize those tuition benefits as well. So it goes back to finding the more affordable programs, finding the programs that are right for them because most of the time these people are already working full-time. So it is a huge undertaking to go back to school when you're working full-time.

It can be done. It's not impossible, but it, it's something that you need to, to realize and plan for. So we talk through all of those different really nuanced things that they're going to need to be prepared for as they start that journey. We also, I mean we go as far as to helping people fill out their FAFSA form because you always wanna fill out that form because you,

there may be grant money somewhere, just make sure you understand your financial aid package when you get it, which is something else that we can kind of help people work through. What is, you know, what is a loan, what's not a loan. We al we also have roles that we will fully fund their education for. So nursing is one of them,

so wow, we get a lot of people that wanna be nurses and that's great and wonderful because we need nurses. Excellent career field to go in. Right now it's a tough job but we need nurses so we'll help people find the right program and then we help them have, have everything paid for. So I mean there's no cost cap on it either.

So they can, they pretty much have their choice of program. Yes. And it's only, it's an 18 month work back commitment. So, and that starts while you're in school. So you're already in your work back commitment while you're going through your program. But we also help place people in those high priority roles. So the laboratory is another great role and the lab has this amazing career ladder too.

There's so much progression nursing does as well. So we do that. And I also work with non-clinical as well, actually that's kind of my niche is I, I talk with the people who are more in like our shared services division. So maybe they're in accounting or finance or human resources or supply chain. So some more kind of like non-clinical traditional things.

So we look at, you know, maybe they've got a bachelor's degree and they wanna go back and get a master's, so how can we, how can we do this? How can we leverage our tuition, how can we make this a little bit easier? And then I also just help people figure out what they wanna do, which is sometimes a challenge,

but we do a lot of just general guidance. Maybe they don't need to go back to school but they're not happy in their role and they wanna find something different and not because of anything significant, but maybe it's just, I mean sometimes you get a job and it's just not the right job or you don't, your your, your interests change. Your passions change.

I mean mine change like every six months, I won't even lie. So you know, sometimes you have to, you start, you might be in a really great job but maybe that those job duties and responsibilities just aren't something that are helping you anymore that you're excited about. So I help people kind of transition away from that as well. So just,

I mean job Searchie on its own can be quite laborious. I mean you have to know what you're looking for and of course we're looking internally, but I help my students at the college look externally and there's so much out there and when you're applying for jobs, I mean we've all probably seen on LinkedIn you can like see how many people have applied for a job.

Sometimes it's a thousand people have applied for that role. So really looking at how can you be the standout candidate. And I've talked a lot about e about education, the last, you know, 45 minutes or so. But really when you're applying for jobs, it's not just the education you need the education if it's a minimum requirement or a preferred requirement on the job outline,

the job posting. But it's also a combination of your skills, which is really important and your experience as well. And it doesn't necessarily have to be experience in that particular field. There's a lot of crossover experience. I mean customer service is one that you know, pretty much crosses over in almost everything and a lot of crossover and skills as well. So if you are looking to transition into another role and maybe the education piece is already taken care of,

make sure on your resume that you're highlighting those skills, make sure that you are highlighting that relevant experience and you should have a resume that is specific to the role that you are applying for. So never use a generic resume. And also if I could just throw a couple other quick tips out here, don't use those templates that have like icons, pictures,

colors, like you need to use a plain text document because a lot of these larger organizations use applicant tracking systems and when you submit your resume it doesn't convert right And when like from the recruiter view, it looks terrible and messy and stuff gets left off and pages get blown out. And so plain text resumes definitely two thumbs up for those they're not as exciting but honestly your recruiters and hiring managers aren't looking to see,

everyone knows you're using a template on Word. Like we know you didn't design that yourself. Yeah, it's True. Just use a plain text document, use all the white space possible. If you have less than 10 years experience in the industry, a one page resume is absolutely fine. If you have more than ten two page resume, don't go over three pages because a recruiter is looking at your resume for less than 30 seconds and if there's more they're not gonna keep going.

So just some things to consider. I, I always hesitate giving like resume advice because you could ask a hundred different people and you're gonna get a hundred different responses. But what I've seen with the hiring managers that we work with with my students, the plain text resume with as much skills and experience and your education as possible highlighted is it's gold. So something to consider as you're transitioning into a new role.

Yeah, I love that because I had always thought it was one page only and as you know, my husband and I have gotten older, It starts to stack up, right? Yeah. Like how are gonna fit this on one page And so I love that. Okay, so you can't, Two pages is good, Two pages max at least. Yes.

Okay, Awesome. And I wanna throw this out, this is not for federal resume. So if you're applying for a job with the federal government, they do wanna know everything about your life. So your resume could very much be be 12 pages long just depending on on how much. But, but typically for your, you know, your, your private sector roles or your public sector roles,

those are the one or two page resume is fine, but don't give them a five page resume. Nobody's gonna read past it, I promise you That's true. They don't need to know about your job in high school and stuff when you've got 20 years of relevant experience. So, Well and now that you mentioned that, that's another thing, if you have a college degree,

you don't need to put your high school information on there because it would be naturally assumed that you graduated high school or you have a G E D, right? So Right. Just some small tips so that you can fit everything on one or two pages if you'd like. I love that. And I really it, I don't know how to describe this cuz I was a police officer before as well,

like your husband. And so just the atmosphere, the culture is very different. And so just the thought that your organization has all the support to help people learn and grow with and you know, make transitions with and wanting to keep people versus oh you wanna leave, well screw you type of mentality. It's like, wow, this is so refreshing. So,

you know, for people that may not know if they have this type of a benefit, should they just contact hr? I mean like who should they talk to to see if this is something that is offered? Yeah, so I will say my organization is probably on the forefront of this, but I have seen it at other organizations as well. So we're called internal mobility,

but it may be your learning and development team that could help you with this. When I worked at the bank that I did very similar things. It wasn't a formalized process, but we would help people with kind of finding that right path as well. But definitely usually under the umbrella of hr, they'll be able to point you in the right direction. Your tuition benefits are typically gonna fall under HR and this would typically follow that as well.

But if your organization doesn't have someone that you can lean into, don't be afraid to talk to your managers, right? A sign of a good organization is having that growth mindset, right? We call it that like talent shepherd. We wanna shepherd you into, you know, growth in the organization instead of being a talent hoarder. So if you've got a great manager,

lean into them, ask them questions, ask them how they got to where they are. You know, don't be afraid to, to kind of communicate that. And also, you know, if you work for an organization and there's an area like I'm gonna use banking for instance. Maybe you work within a branch, maybe you do new accounts or something,

but maybe you have an interest in like financial crime or fraud. Like don't be afraid to reach out to somebody in your, in the fraud department and just start asking some questions. A lot of times people love to talk about what they, what they do. I love to talk about what I do, so I wanna share that knowledge and information with others.

So just lean into mentors at your organization if, if they don't have a formalized capability for this. Love it. Is there anything else that you wanna add that you know, you want people to take from this episode? I know we covered a lot, like you gave us a lot of good tips. We did. Anything else you wanna add? I feel like I was all over the place and I have a lot more information I could probably add to this,

but I think what I want people to take away is when you're looking to go back to school, whether you're traditional or non-traditional, you have to be an informed consumer and you have to be your own advocate. No one else is looking out for you, no one else has your specific goals and desires or passions. So make sure that you're researching that you're find and finding things that are right for you.

And also making sure that there's alignment between your career aspirations and the programs that you're going for. Yes, absolutely. Now if somebody has any questions or anything, they wanna reach out to you, do you have a way that they could do that So they can email me, which I think I gave you my email, but I can give it to you again if you wanna put it in the show notes.

So, okay, if anybody has any questions or they're just getting started and they really were like me early on and have no idea where to look or what, what to do, I'll be happy to provide some guidance. I wanna be very clear, I do not do scholarship researching for people because it is a lot of work. So if I were going to do that,

I would have to charge a pretty penny for it, which kind of defeats the purpose, but I can start to point you in the right direction. I can kind of offer coaching because I was selected for multiple scholarships at my organiz at my, the school that I did my masters at. I can coach you on kind of how, how to craft those answers and what they're looking for in the responses.

So there's, there's a few different ways that I can help you get started on that journey. So feel free to reach out to me via email. Awesome. I will make sure that's in the show notes. And thank you for sharing this great information. I feel like we need to have a part two, Just let me know. I can go,

Yeah, I can definitely go into more detail over different programs at community colleges. I actually have some friends that are, are doing the same thing that I'm doing. They're leveraging, I have a friend who has a bunch of degrees already, but decided to go back to school to be a nurse and he and I were talking about he got money through the CARES Act to pay for his nursing school.

Like I have another friend that finished his second master's degree and he leveraged a couple different things in order to find more affordable programs. So this is happening, this is not just something that I've stumbled across. It is a hundred percent doable to go back to school and like I said, I made money on my master's degrees and I'm gonna come out of this doctorate for $0 and there your path might not be the exact same path as mine,

but there are definitely ways to reduce the cost or even get it for free. Yes, absolutely. So I just love that because when I went to school, like, you know, I got the FA did the FAFSA and got the financial aid and I just thought, oh, well that's what I have to pay. Like of course that was back in the early two thousands and I'm like,

you know, my parents didn't go to college, they had no idea. So I'm just like, oh, okay, well that's what I have to pay. And that's just what, Because you didn't know otherwise, right? No one was there to coach you or tell you, and I'll, I'll tell you this quick story. So my oldest, I,

a question I get asked a lot is when should I start talking to my kids about college, right? Because if you have children and maybe you're not gonna be able to afford to send them to school, many people can't and that's okay. But my daughter's 14 and she's, and the last six months really kind of shaped up, you know, she's gotten past the I wanna be an astronaut.

I wanna be a veterinarian, right? Yeah. She's been talking about being a crime scene investigator for probably about a year now. And then she came home the other day and was like, well I wanna go to High Point, high Point in Greensboro, it's a private college. And I was like, so I started doing some research. I had looked on the city website to see if they had a job posting for a crime scene investigator.

And they did. And I learned that she needs a two year degree either in biology, chemistry, crime scene, law enforcement. So we started having those really candid conversations of if you wanna go to High Point for the experience, you are going to have to find a way to pay for it because the job you want doesn't need a four-year degree. It's not saying I don't want my my child to get a four-year degree,

but you can get your two-year degree at our local community college and pay very little and we'll pay very little for that. And you can start your job and then once you get in there, find out whether you actually like it or not. Because I'm a little nur crime scene. That's, that's a, I mean, you know, yeah I do.

That's A tough, tough one. It looks great on tv, but that's a very challenging one. But get the two year degree, get the job, find out if you like it or not, and then once you do, then you can go back and finish your, your bachelor's degree and move forward from there. Like it doesn't have to be this,

I graduate high school, I go to college, I'm in my job for the rest of my life. That model does not work anymore. Exactly. Right. Even if we did the traditional path, I talk to people every day who are 20 years into their career and they're like, I don't wanna do this anymore. So just keep that open mind,

do your research and just, yeah, it can really help you to be an informed consumer, a consumer and advocate when you're looking into this. Absolutely. And I will say that most government employers, they have tuition reimbursement, so Yep. You know, as you know, she could do that and then make sure sh that she can handle it and then go back to store and they'll pay for it.

So. Yep. All. Well I appreciate you taking the time and I will put your information in the show notes in case anybody would like to reach out for some extra help. Yeah, awesome. Thanks Ashley. Thanks. All right. She gave you a lot of really great information and you may be ready to get started and start looking into it.

So reach out to her. She has offered a couple of free consultation, 30 minute calls for my listeners. So, you know, she doesn't charge anything, she doesn't do this for the money, she does this just to really help people. So check out in the show notes how to email her, let 'em know that you listen to this episode and she can kind of help guide you a little bit to getting started because there's just so many resources out there and so many options.

And so you really have to figure out what will work for you and your life and your, the season that you're in right now. Because it's different depending on if you have young kids, older kids, if you know your job, how many jobs are you working? But keep in mind it is doable. So don't be scared to get started and reach out to her to get a little bit of help because just like she said,

colleges are businesses and they're out to make money as much as they can. So let me know if you would like to have her back and expand on some of this because she packed a lot into 45 minutes and there's even more she could talk about. So let me know if this is a topic that you're interested in and would like to hear more about because she has offered to come back and expand if you guys want it.

So you have to tell me yes or no. Do you want her to come back and learn more about and going back to college as an adult? And don't forget that the kickstart bundle is for sale for a limited time. There's only a few more days left. It won't be available again until next year. And if you are tired of having the same year over and over where you get to the end of the year and you're like,

I made how much money? Where the heck did it all go? You have the same bills, more bills, you're just sick of it, right? That you're just, someday you can save when you get there. At some point you can save. Let's get started. So that this year can be different. 2023 is going to be different for you,

but you have to take action and you have to do it now, you've gotta get started. So go check out the kickstart bundle@budgetsmaeasy.com slash kickstart in the link of courses in the show notes. I will talk to you guys soon.