dilemma in changing jobs
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Hello,
I have been in k-12 education for ten years. I recently(been there 10 months) took a job at a local college because my girls would get free college. I took the job at a significant pay decrease assuming I would be able to move up in pay eventually. After talking with my director and many others, there is very little room to move and the pay isn’t much. I am very disappointed. I have been approached by a school district of an opening that I would make
20,000/year more than I am making now. Which would significantly allow for financial freedom.
My dilemma is I feel horrible letting my girls down. What should I do?Here is a strange technical issue for Kate: when I read this, the writer’s full email address, which is her full name appeared in the spot for e-mail address, if I were to reply — you know, the line write under (will not be published) (required)
I don’t know about the tech issue, I can’t tell what happened. I emailed Wendy in case she can decipher it.
Did you tell your girls they were going to be able to go to school for free, and were they into that? If so, yeah, I can see them feeling very let down, especially because this sounds like honestly poor planning on your part. You hadn’t budgeted or saved for college, and then you took a job knowing you were signing up for a lower salary, without inquiring enough into the advancement opportunity. It’s hard to know what you should do at this point without knowing your full financial picture but if your girls are relying on this for their education, can you make it work? Can you cut back on things? What’s your retirement situation? Generally saving for your retirement needs to be a priority over saving for kids education. I need to know more in order to recommend staying or leaving. If you take the higher paying job, can you put some of that money aside for their college funds?
How old are your daughters? Is the plan for them to pay for college themselves if they don’t get free tuition through your job?
Ron, I’m not sure why that tech issue happened. I did have my site migrated to a new host today so maybe that has something to do with it. Let me know if you continue to experience weird glitches like that.
If you’re going to leave the job, please talk to your daughters as soon as possible. A friend of mine went through this. Her mother quit before my friend could apply for financial aid and she ended up with more debt than she otherwise would have. Early enough she’d have been able to get aid.
Many years later, it’s still a very big sore spot in her relationship with her mother. I’m not saying you need to stay in the job if that’s untenable. I’m just hoping you can plan ahead to minimize the impact if your daughters are relying on free/reduced tuition.
I actually noticed the glitch earlier on a different thread. I was not logged in and noticed @LisforLeslie’s username and email address had auto-filled into the reply box at the bottom of the screen.
I also have a lot of questions. How old are your girls? Would they have to go to the college you work at or would they be able to go to the school of their choosing? If the former, is that where they’d want to go to school?
Without knowing more, I’d say take the higher paying job if it means financial freedom. Having parents who can foot the bill is not the only way to avoid outrageous student loan debt.
First, add what your family will save in tuition to what you earn at the college. How does that compare to what you would earn if you returned to teaching. Since the school is local, your daughters save on room and board, which also helps the overall family balance sheet.
If you save a lot more on tuition, room and board than you lose on the difference between the two salaries, then turn to your daughters for input. All of Copa’s questions are good ones. In addition, how eager are your daughters to avoid educational debt. If they are very eager, then they can contribute some $ to the current family budget to make up some of the wages you are losing. Depending upon the college at which you teach, your daughters will be eligible for free tuition at a number of colleges, if your college and the colleges they are interested in are all participants in the Tuition Exchange program.
My daughters are 18 and 19. When I accepted the position, I was told there is room for advancement. Since then that director has left and the reality is there is little room for advancement. If I leave, my daughters would have student loans, but of course I would help them.
I think you need to be very explicit about how you would help them. I’m imaging one scenario where they are going to this school (are they both currently enrolled?) not because it was their first choice but because the tuition would be free to them since you are an employee there. You quit the job to take a higher-paying job elsewhere, leaving them suddenly responsible for tuition at a school that wasn’t their first choice. You get 20k more a year while they rack up debt they weren’t expecting to have (again, at a school they potentially would not have chosen for themselves if they knew they’d go into debt attending it).
I think as a daughter, I’d be pretty hurt and upset to be in that position. If I was going to have debt anyway, I’d have preferred accruing it at a school of my choosing. If my mom left a job that gave me free tuition to take a job elsewhere for more money and she didn’t use most of that money to help me with the tuition I was suddenly and unexpectedly responsible for, I’d be pretty pissed off. So, if your intention with your extra 20k a year – aka “financial freedom” is to pay your kids’ college tuition with it, please let your daughters know that.
Yes, I guess I do. Sorry about that. Their decision to attend this college has nothing to do with my current job. My youngest is a senior in High school and has plans to attend this college regardless of my job. My oldest was at the college before I got the job.
How much is a year’s tuition at this college?
