From work to college

P

Pandrew

Guest
Hello,
Would anyone be able to help with advice about leaving work to go back to college, please? Getting married next year and my girlfriend would like to do a 2 year course, in the hope of landing a better job in the longer term (in the Care field). We are in the process of buying a house as well, to add some more stress!

We have both been working about 14 years each and don't know where is best to look for information on social welfare, grants etc.

She went to our local Citizens' Advice Office and was told she 'didn't look like she needed a grant'. Obviously, we're looking for something a bit more helpful.

Thank you.
 
There was a recent query on the same sort of topic (grants for mature students etc.) recently but I can't find it at the moment. You might fare better by browsing/searching. How much have you saved to help subsidise your studying/living/wedding/house buying etc. costs in the meantime?
 
Hi Clubman,
We're currently working like mad and have the wedding costs covered. Our main difficulty is not really knowing exactly how much it'll cost to make the house liveable once we move in, combined with the loss of income for two (9 month) college terms.

At a very rough guess, I'd say we need to come up with 20,000 to cover the two years. At the moment, we're planning on lots of overtime for me and a part time job for her.

It's a good job we love each other!

Thanks for the help
 
In the other thread that I mentioned the person involved seemed to imply that their course fees would be about €10K! So are you sure that €20K for two people (or will one of you remain in employment while the other is working) for two years is enough? You'd really need to crunch all the numbers and do a current and modified budget to check. Also - how will your lender react to one (or both?) of you packing in work to go back to college? How will you be paying the mortgage, your living expenses and college fees?
 
Pandrew said:
Getting married next year and my girlfriend would like to do a 2 year course, in the hope of landing a better job in the longer term (in the Care field). We are in the process of buying a house as well, to add some more stress!

We have both been working about 14 years each and don't know where is best to look for information on social welfare, grants etc.
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Seems to be just the GF who will be leaving paid employment.
Still tough to go from two incomes to one though, especially with the mortgage etc. coming onboard.


I seem to remember a few different threads which touch on this sort of area, so search through AAM and Google for all available info.

A very good source of help is usually the college themselves. They deal with these queries frequently so should be able to help. They may be able to point out any additional funding possible (grants/scholorships etc.) that no other source would be aware of.
 
With respect to tuition fees...As far as I am aware tuition fees are free providing that you have not read at that level.This means you can go from diploma to Ph.D (providing dept of education and science recognise the course). But if you already hold a degree and want to read another then tuition fees have to be paid (~€4,000-€5,000) for which tax relief is available.
 
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ClubMan said:
There was a recent query on the same sort of topic (grants for mature students etc.) recently but I can't find it at the moment.
Click to expand...

Was it this one?

Pandrew - try the oasis.gov.ie / citizensinformation.ie sites. And call or email people in the various grant offices instead of trying to work things out for yourself!

I believe a lot of grants and funding are means tested and this can disqualify many people who are moving from work to college. The ginormous form I had to fill out for mine included sections on whether you owned land and if you had kids and what your spouse earned and so on as well as your own income.

Find out about whether you'll be paying fees and if so, what are they. They can range from a few thousand up to over €25k (for an MBA) so it's something to watch out for. And even if you have funding towards fees, there may be a limit on how far it goes e.g. my course fees were nearly €12k for one year and I can't get more than around €5k towards that - not complaining though!!
 
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I just want to say the best of luck. I have friends who put each other through college before they settled down and they are now married with one child and both have better jobs out of it. It was tough for them but they knew it would be worth it. I have a friend who is job sharing in her workplace and is in full time education and she has her fees paid which is a big help.
I myself have been saving for 2 years so as I can go back to college full time you really need to make sure there is enough in the bank. Best of luck it will be worth it.

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Hello there,
Thank you all for your help on this. It all seemed horribly daunting and I've received more information from the postings on this site than I managed to get from the Citizen's Information office.

Will knuckle down this week, armed with the information from you all, and let you know how I get on.

Thanks again!

Pandrew
 
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