educational roadblocks

I've reached a frustrating point in my quest to resume post-secondary studies. I know what I want but I don't quite know how to get there and whether I can afford to do what I really want. What interests me is to get a degree in Business Administration with a focus on Human Resources - Organizational behaviour and change type of stuff fascinates me.

First I thought I would attend the local college and go part time for a while until Calum is settled into school fulltime. Well, when I looked closely at their HR full time program it was clear that it is geared toward people who are looking to do a more numbers-focused type of curriculum so they can do more of the "management" side of things. That's not what I really want, I want to work with people and help them do what they do more effectively.

So, I looked at the local university (Simon Fraser) and their HR program seems to fit the bill quite nicely. Once I worked my way through the muddle of admissions options for someone who is ten years out of university with only one year of university studies to her name, it seemed like that would be a good place to go. Until I looked at the student loans information on the BCSAP (British Columbia Student Assistance Program) website.

OK, so get this - they have what they call "moderate standard of living" guidelines for a family of four. Because we live in a housing coop our housing costs are actually quite a bit lower than what they list, but basically, they allow X dollars per month for housing, food, public transportation, and "misc" and the allowance for that would barely cover things like utilities, clothing, haircuts, shoes and the myriad other things a family with two growing children needs to buy. It is really expensive to raise kids in Burnaby and I already go to great lengths to keep costs low. And I guess that if one family member wants to attend full time university or college, that means they need to send their children only to the local public school, and spend time they might otherwise use for study on a bus so that they aren't wasting money on the frivolous "luxury" of a family vehicle. The family should not buy magazine subscriptions, cable TV, toys and games for the children, or other things that might make their frugal lives more interesting.

I'd have to double check our actual income and budget against their guidelines, but basically it looks like if we get rid of our van and take the bus everywhere for a few years, we wouldn't actually need to bother with the whole student loan thing because we could just pay for the tuition, etc out of Jeff's income. Cruel irony!

Anyway, so last night I went to a meeting at Megan's school and one of the staff members told me she had taken a Master's program at a University in Victoria that does programs for executives. Their MBA program in Human Resources looks fantastic, and the program is done through a combination of intensive three-week on campus sessions and online classes. That would fit in really well with my kids' needs over the next few years. Also, they will look at your life experiences in combination with whatever post-secondary schooling you've had, so that means all the time and energy I've invested in LLL administration over the past years would actually be considered the valid learning and working experience that it is. Very cool! And it comes with a very cool price tag of $33,000 in tuition and fees. Yowza!

At any rate, we all have a lot of thinking to do over the next little while and I have some number crunching to do as well. But it's exciting to be at a point where I can seriously consider this again, after waiting so long during those years when my kids needed me at home and available. (They still do need this, but they're getting to a much more flexible age).