10 Ideas for Paying for College as an Adult Returning Student

It’s exciting to enter graduate school and return to college life again. But my first concern upon getting my acceptance letter was: Great, now how will I pay for it?

As an adult returning student, I have more options than I did as a teenager for paying for college — even though I’m leaving my full-time job. Below, I detail five methods I’m focusing on to make my finances work. I’ve followed those up with five more ways to pay for college as an adult returning student.

[August 2015 update: I take stock of how well I’ve been balancing income and expenses. TL;DR: I need to do more work.]

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Just What is Informatics?

As those of you who subscribe to my Facebook page know, I recently decided to leave my job as an IndyStar.com digital producer in order to go back to school full-time. With luck, by the end of 2016, I’ll have a master’s degree in Media Arts & Sciences from the Department of Human-Centered Computing at IUPUI’s School of Informatics and Computing.

After giving me their congratulations, many people’s first question is, “What is informatics?”

Simply put, informatics is the science of information, both in theory and in practice.

“Harnessing the power and possibility of technology, Informatics turns data and information into knowledge that people can use every day,” says the SOIC website’s own definition. That could be through creating 3-D animations, accelerating drug discoveries through computer analysis, developing IT to manage disaster relief or exploring how we humans interact with computers, mobile devices and robots, according to its website.

Sounds dead useful — and fun!

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(Note: The “Hello, World” post is traditional as the debut output of any programming or other computing endeavor.)