SoFi Blog

If you just graduated from nursing school, personal finance is probably the last thing on your mind. You’ve burned the midnight oil memorizing medical terms that sound like a foreign language. You’ve put in rough clinical hours dealing with trying patients. You’re cramming for the NCLEX. And you’re ready to get out there and just do the job.

You might be thinking, “I went to school for a solid career, so the money will take care of itself.” Nurses do make pretty good salaries—you’re not wrong about that. In 2016, on average nurse practitioner made nearly $105,000 a year, registered nurses made more than $72,000, and practical and vocational nurses made $44,000. Demand for nurses of all stripes is growing, with the number of positions expected to increase between 16 and 31%, depending on the role, in the decade through 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Other than your love life, finance might just be the last topic you’d ever want to discuss with your parents. Not only could it potentially open you up to unnecessary and unwanted criticism (ahem, like comments about avocado toast), but financial advice from a baby boomer can sometimes feel a little irrelevant. The financial climate has changed considerably since your parents were in their 20s or 30s. The cost of higher education has gone up 1,120% in 30 years, and millennials (i.e., you) are carrying majority of the $1.2 trillion in student loans Americans currently owe and are paying back.

Entering the working world among an MBA class of ambitious post-grads can be like the Hunger Games. I’ve been there: Desperate former students scramble to not just score their dream job, but figure out how to pay for their—let’s not beat around the bush—very expensive education. Going to Columbia Business School was definitely a worthwhile investment, giving me a big-picture view of how companies work that would help me pursue my future goals in marketing. But, after two years of $60K tuition, I was over $100K in debt—which was pretty overwhelming, to say the least.

Of course, money can be a significant source of stress in long-term relationships. It just comes with the territory of important, but less enjoyable, aspects of combining two lives over time—like meeting the in laws and figuring out how to share a space. As you grow your life together, you also grow your finances together, and inevitably conflict can arise when you’re having heavy talks about things like savings goals and spending habits.

Becoming an entrepreneur is one of the most rewarding—and terrifying—things you’ll ever do. I started my own business, a business-planning software company initially based in Palo Alto, California, three years after graduating from business school. I’ve succeeded through several decades, but it wasn’t always easy given that I struggled with student loan and mortgage payments, and took care of my family at the same time. But today, I’m financially secure, my business is healthy, and I employ more than 60 people at our new location in Eugene, Oregon. Because I’ve dealt with startups and entrepreneurs for a long time, I’m well equipped to outline what you can expect if you’re planning to start your own business.

B-school has given other entrepreneurs exactly what it gave me: business fundamentals, including basic finance, marketing, and administration. An MBA program also teaches you how to plan and, most importantly, how to understand cash flow. But what school doesn’t teach you is how to wade through the entrepreneur clichés to get to the unvarnished truth.