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is essential to your happiness, don't jeapardize it by moving across the country or the globe. If a distant university appeals to you more than your partner, just end the relationship and move on. You don't need the emotional turmoil of a long distance relationship while in grad school!

You also need to consider your friends, your hobbies, and your family. If you love hiking in the woods every weekend, can you really be happy in an urban area? If your kids are enjoying their school and activities, is it really fair to drag them away? The answer to that depends on your children. Some kids make friends easily and adapt to change. Others do not, especially if they have special needs that are currently being met. And what about your friends? Will it be enough to keep in touch with phone calls and Internet, or will the friendships die when you can't share activities like sports, volunteer work, etc.? These are all serious considerations.

3. So now I've narrowed my grad school choices down by geography and availability of degrees. I've applied to all of them, so I know which will accept me and how much financial aid I can get at each. Now which is the cheapest? (Assuming all your choices are real, established, respectable universities.)

Do not, I repeat, do not go to a school because it has a "better reputation". That's like buying brand name jeans that cost ten times what the no-name jeans cost! The fact is, all respectable universities have good instructors with advanced degrees in their subjects. And here's the kicker-

Grad school is nearly all self-taught anyway. Your professors will treat you like the true scholar you are and not try to spoon feed you all the course content. You'll be reading books, doing library research, discussing ideas with classmates, and making connections for yourself. Your professors' lectures will be a springboard, but how far you jump is up to you.

Once you have the degree, you'll get the interviews you want. Once you're in the interview, it's all about personality and knowledge (in that order). People with "prestigious" degrees work side-by-side with people who have the same degree from a no-name university. And sure, they might make a few dollars a year more. But they're paying out the nose on their prodigious student loan debt, so much that the few extra dollars of salary become laughable. And wouldn't you rather be the one doing the laughing?

Learn more about this author, Raven Lebeau.
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