Going Back to School After a Layoff: Pros, Cons, and How to Decide

Might as well go back to school if I can't get a job, right?

You have turned in 200+ applications, reached out to everyone you have ever met in your working career, and answered the question of "So have you found a job yet?" with as much grace as you can muster after being asked for the 20th time by friends and family.

But nothing appears to be changing about your short term job prospects. You know that you are a capable candidate with lots to offer many companies so the the thought may have crossed your mind that you need something to prove your capabilities to future employers. In thinking that through you may have stumbled upon the following question:

"What if I just went back to school instead?"

On the surface that can seem like a great solution to your job search frustrations. It allows you to do something productive with your time while allowing for market conditions to potentially change and make your re-entry into the job market easier with the help of a new degree.

But is it actually? In this article we are going to talk through some of the points you may have missed when deciding whether or not to go back to school and help determine if this is really the right decision based on your situation.

The Case For Going Back to School

A Built-In Reset Button

A layoff, painful as it is, creates a rare window of flexibility. Without a job tethering your schedule, you have time to genuinely evaluate what you want the next chapter of your career to look like. Going back to school (whether for a new degree, a certification, or a focused bootcamp) can be a productive way to use that window rather than scrambling to replicate the job you just lost.

Credential Gaps Are Real

In some fields, certain doors simply won't open without specific credentials. Healthcare, law, engineering, data science, and academia all have hard requirements. If you've been trying to break into one of these areas, or if your existing credentials have become outdated, additional education can be the unlock. A laid-off marketing manager who wants to transition into UX design, for example, may find that a focused certificate program dramatically shortens the time to hire in a new field.

Career Pivots Are Easier With Structure

Self-teaching works for some people in some fields, but it's slow and requires enormous self-discipline. A formal program gives you a curriculum, deadlines, peers, and institutional credibility. If your pivot is significant (say, from finance to software development), a structured program can compress years of flailing into one focused year of learning.

The Case Against (Or at Least: Slow Down)

The Costs Are Real and Substantial

Graduate school is expensive. A two-year MBA at a top-tier private university can run $150,000 or more in tuition alone, not counting living expenses or the income you're forgoing. Even shorter programs, like a one-year master's or an intensive bootcamp, can cost $15,000 to $60,000. Online programs and community college options are far more affordable, but even those carry real costs.

Before committing, build out the full financial picture:

• Tuition and fees (over the entire program, not just the first semester)

• Living expenses (especially if you're no longer earning)

• Opportunity cost (what you could have earned if you'd gotten a job instead)

• Debt service (if you're borrowing, what will your monthly payments look like?)

Many people underestimate costs by anchoring on the sticker price of tuition without accounting for everything else.

Funding Options Can Change the Math

The sticker price isn't always what you pay, but you have to go looking. Before assuming school is unaffordable, investigate:

• Scholarships and grants: Many programs offer merit or need-based aid that doesn't require repayment. Start with the program's own financial aid office, then look at field-specific foundations and professional associations.

• Employer tuition reimbursement: If you're returning to the same industry, or even pivoting within it, some employers offer tuition benefits as part of their hiring package. It's worth asking during negotiations.

• GI Bill and military benefits: Veterans may have substantial education funding available. The Post-9/11 GI Bill can cover tuition, fees, and a housing stipend at many schools.

• 529 plans: If you or a family member has a 529 college savings account, funds can typically be used for graduate school and some certificate programs.

• Tax deductions: Student loan interest (up to $2,500/year) is tax-deductible for many borrowers, and some education expenses qualify for credits like the Lifetime Learning Credit.

Funding won't make an ill-fitting program a good decision, but it can meaningfully change the ROI calculation for a program that's otherwise borderline.

Time Out of the Market Compounds

A two-year degree program doesn't just cost two years. It costs two years of salary, two years of retirement contributions, and two years of professional network growth. Depending on your field and career stage, a gap of that length can make re-entry harder, not easier. Hiring managers sometimes view long breaks with suspicion unless there's a clear, compelling story attached.

The math gets particularly uncomfortable for mid-career professionals in their 40s or 50s. A two-year program that costs $100,000 and delays your return to work is a significant financial hole. Whether you can dig out of it depends entirely on what you earn on the other side.

Crunching the numbers might be the most critical aspect of this decision. Don't skip it!

Part-Time vs. Full-Time: A Middle Path Worth Considering

The article so far has implicitly assumed full-time enrollment, but that's not the only option, and for many people it's not the right one. Part-time and evening programs have expanded significantly, particularly online, and they fundamentally change the financial and time calculus.

Going part-time while working (even in a contract, freelance, or bridge job) means you can keep income flowing, maintain your professional network, and avoid the psychological strain of being entirely out of the workforce. The tradeoff is time: a degree that takes two years full-time might take three or four years part-time.

A few questions to help decide:

• Is speed essential? If you're trying to make a rapid pivot into a hot field, full-time may be worth the sacrifice. If you have flexibility, part-time preserves your options.

• Does your target field value the full-time experience? Some MBA programs, for instance, have robust recruiting ecosystems built around full-time students. A part-time program at the same school may not provide the same access.

• Can you genuinely manage both? Part-time school while working is demanding. Be realistic about whether you'll be able to do both well, or whether you'll end up doing neither particularly well.

  
  

Return on Investment: Running the Numbers

ROI is where enthusiasm meets reality. The question isn't whether a degree is valuable in the abstract. It's whether this degree, from this program, in this field, makes financial sense for you specifically.

A simple framework:

1. Estimated salary increase: Research salaries for roles you'd be qualified for after the program. Be honest; don't assume you'll land the 90th percentile outcome.

2. Total program cost: Tuition + living expenses + foregone income.

3. Break-even timeline: Divide total cost by annual salary increase. If it takes 15 years to break even, think hard about whether that's acceptable.

   
   

For example: if an MBA program costs $120,000 all-in and boosts your salary by $30,000/year, you break even in four years, which is a reasonable return. But if the same program only yields a $10,000/year bump, you're looking at 12 years to break even, which is a much harder sell.

Useful resources for salary benchmarking include the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, LinkedIn Salary, and Glassdoor. For programs themselves, look for published data on median earnings of graduates, as many schools are now required to report this.

Career Pivots: When School Makes the Most Sense

Going back to school is most defensible when you're making a genuine pivot into a field where:

• Credentials are gatekeeping (e.g., nursing, teaching, law, engineering)

• The skills gap is wide and self-teaching is impractical

• The field is credential-conscious and hiring managers will filter on educational background

It's harder to justify when you're staying in roughly the same field and primarily want a resume line item or a confidence boost. In many cases, a well-targeted job search, paired with online learning and visible projects, will get you hired faster and cheaper.

The most important question: Will employers in my target role actually care about this credential? If you're not sure, talk to people already doing that job. LinkedIn makes it relatively easy to find practitioners and ask a few polite questions about their hiring experiences.

Research the Job Market in Your Target Field First

Before investing in a credential, make sure the field you're entering is actually hiring. Some fields have both credential requirements and soft job markets, a combination that can leave you with a degree and still struggling to find work.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook publishes 10-year job growth projections for hundreds of occupations and is a good starting point. LinkedIn's job search can give you a real-time sense of volume. If there are 50 open roles nationally in your target position, that's a very different situation than 5,000. Industry reports, professional associations, and even recent news coverage of a sector can fill in the picture.

The goal isn't to find a field with zero risk (those don't exist). It's to make sure you're not spending two years and significant money training for a market that won't absorb you when you're done.

Quality of Programs Matters Enormously

Not all degrees are created equal, and this matters more than people often admit. A computer science degree from a well-regarded state university carries more weight than one from an unaccredited online school. An MBA from a top-20 program opens doors that one from an unknown regional school generally doesn't.

Before enrolling, research:

• Accreditation: Is the school regionally accredited? Is the specific program accredited by a relevant body (e.g., AACSB for business, ABA for law)?

• Employment outcomes: What percentage of graduates find relevant employment within six months? What is the median salary?

• Employer recognition: Do employers in your target field actually recruit from this program?

• Alumni network: Is the alumni network active and helpful, or is it largely dormant?

  
  

Be especially careful with for-profit institutions and some online-only programs. Some are genuinely excellent; others have poor outcomes and aggressive recruitment practices. The U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard is a useful starting point for evaluating outcomes data.

School Is One Tool, Not the Only Tool

It's easy to frame this decision as binary: go back to school, or don't. But school is really just one instrument in a larger toolkit, and it's worth being explicit about the alternatives before committing.

For many career pivots, a well-worked network gets you further faster than a new credential. People hire people they know and trust. If you have relationships (or can build them) in your target field, those connections can open doors that a degree alone won't. Informational interviews, industry meetups, online communities, and LinkedIn outreach all cost time but not tuition.

Freelancing and contract work can also serve as a bridge. Taking on small projects in your target field builds a portfolio, generates references, and demonstrates competence in a way that's often more persuasive to employers than a transcript. It also generates income while you're making the transition.

And online learning on platforms like Coursera, edX, and LinkedIn Learning has become genuinely strong in many areas. For roles where skills matter more than credentials, self-directed learning combined with visible project work can be a faster and cheaper path than formal enrollment.

None of this means school is the wrong answer. It means the question worth asking is: given what I'm trying to accomplish, is school the most efficient path?

A Note on Decision-Making After a Layoff

There's something worth naming directly: layoffs are stressful, and stress is not a good environment for making major financial decisions.

Research on decision-making under anxiety consistently shows that people under stress tend to be more reactive, more short-term focused, and more susceptible to choices that relieve discomfort in the moment, even at the cost of long-term outcomes. Going back to school can feel like a productive, forward-moving response to the helplessness of a layoff. Sometimes it is. But sometimes it's also a way of avoiding the discomfort of the job search, or a bid for the structure and identity that work used to provide.

That doesn't mean the impulse is wrong. It means it's worth sitting with the decision long enough to distinguish between "I've thought this through and school is the right move" and "I'm anxious and this feels like doing something."

Give yourself permission to wait a month before committing. Talk to a financial advisor if the numbers are significant. Talk to a career counselor if you're genuinely uncertain about direction. The best version of this decision is one you make from a relatively calm, clear-eyed place, not in the first weeks after getting the news.

Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Decide

Before pulling the trigger, work through these:

1. What specific outcome am I trying to achieve? "I want to become a data analyst" is more actionable than "I want to learn new skills." Clarity on the destination helps you evaluate whether a given program actually gets you there.

2. Do I need credentials, or do I need skills? Sometimes you need the piece of paper. Sometimes you just need to learn things, and you can do that more cheaply. Know which situation you're in.

3. Have I talked to people who did this? Find five people who made the same move you're considering. Ask them honestly: Was it worth it? What would they do differently?

4. What's my financial runway? Going back to school while running out of savings is a recipe for distress. Know how long you can comfortably sustain the plan before you need income.

5. What's the opportunity cost? If you spend the next year in a program, what are you not doing? Could you have gotten a job in the new field through a different path, such as an apprenticeship, contract work, or portfolio building?

6. Am I running toward something or away from something? School is a legitimate response to a genuine career pivot. It's a less reliable response to general anxiety about the job market or a desire to avoid the discomfort of the job search.

7. Will going back to school affect my unemployment benefits? This is a practical question people often overlook. Unemployment eligibility rules vary by state, and some states will reduce or eliminate benefits if you're enrolled as a full-time student. Others allow it with restrictions. Check with your state's unemployment office before enrolling, as it could meaningfully affect your financial runway.

A Layoff Is a Prompt, Not a Prescription

Here's the honest bottom line: going back to school after a layoff can be one of the best decisions you make, or a very expensive detour to avoid facing your current situation. The difference usually comes down to specificity. People who succeed with this path tend to have a clear target role, a specific program that's well-regarded in their field, and a realistic financial plan.

If you can answer the question "Why this program, for this goal, right now?" with confidence, you're probably on the right track. If the answer is still fuzzy, it's worth spending a few more weeks getting clear before you commit to something that costs years and tens of thousands of dollars.

Remember that you do not have to make this decision immediately. While it can feel urgent if a semester start date is looming, the best decisions here are made with full information, not deadline pressure. The job market will still be there. So will school. You don't have to decide in the first month.

Have you gone back to school after a job loss? What helped you make the decision, or what do you wish you'd considered more carefully? Share in the comments.