Back to school

[poppe_m]

I am looking for a bit of help on what I should do in my current situation. I am currently a nurse, married, wife is also a nurse, no kids. I will be going back to school full time in August to become a nurse anesthetist. I will go from making ~$45,000/year to ~$150,000/year when I am done. The schooling is 30 months with no breaks and no time to work during. Plan on using loans to pay for the schooling, but my biggest question is what do I do with my retirement account(403b while in school? Roll over to an IRA? Leave it? Cash out? I am good at nursing, not so much in investing. Does anyone have any advice? Thanks

[JustBill]

Congratulations on your decision to further your education and enter a terrific specialty, - and, welcome to the boards.

Without knowing associated fees with your present 403(b) plan, and the quality of investment choices, my first reaction would be to roll the funds to an IRA invested in low-cost index funds. Then, resist temptations to withdraw any funds. It reads as though you must resign from current employer rather than a leave of absence or working PRN. If your current 403(b) options aren't low-cost and quality performers, your resignation will provide a opportune chance to move current investments to a better place. Depending on where you reside, IRA accounts could be more exposed in a lawsuit than 401s and 403s. Also, your present investment balance could dictate whether you're even allowed to leave the funds where they are if the total doesn't surpass the plan's minimum.

[ryaneinstein]

poppe_m it would help if you could give us figures on your IRA such as how much you are investing and how much is there. One arbitrage option is to take a loan for school and use those funds in the IRA as your rate of return from the IRA should be greater then the loan repayment amount.

[bjl584]

I think that the first question needs to be, can you afford to take off 30 months from work, give up $45,000 a year in salary, and take on X amount of student debt?