To go or not to go

<p>Hello. I am having a fair bit of difficulty deciding what my future goals are. I have always been intent on attending college/university, but have made a few choices that led me away from that. I am 22 years old, mother of two small children, and live in a rural location. My common law husband is, like me, a high school graduate, however he has never attended post secondary and therefore jumps from one general labour job to another. I am looking for some advice from anyone who has/is parenting and going through college/university. Should I wait until my children both are in school, or jump in right now? Would it be smartest to have only one of us go back to school? Or should we both stick out the next few years of working lower jobs before we decide what we know we want to take? Thank you! Hope I have posted this in the right spot!</p>

<p>Hey daraleeg,</p>

<p>I would recommend that you post this thread in the parent forum instead of the general college confidential cafe. You will get responses from mostly adults there instead of a combination of both children and adults. Good luck!</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>It is not uncommon for the wife to put the husband through college ("put" in the sense that she works while he studies).</p>

<p>In general, you would be better off to invest in the education first for the person who will earn more. In general, husbands tend to have the "major" job, while the mom has a less time consuming job and has primary responsibility for taking care of the kids. So, this will tend to be the husband.</p>

<p>However, drive, employment goals, higher paying jobs, ability, etc. will make that decision unique for each couple. For instance, your husband may want to be a teacher, and you want to be an engineer. The engineer will tend to earn more.</p>

<p>As long as one of you has a goal, there is no reason not to go to college now. It will only get more difficult in the future. However, if neither of you know what you want to do, going to school is an expensive way to "find yourself".</p>

<p>Maybe one of you can start taking classes at a community college. Make sure you get good counseling on which classes will transfer to a 4-year college, regardless of what degree you end up pursuing.</p>