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This is indeed a head scratcher. On the one hand, you have the opportunity to create a financial safety net, gain work experience, and potentially go back to school with little debt. On the other hand, factory work may not be the most stable field, you'll be putting off your education in something you like, and 50 hours a week in a factor sounds like a lot of hours.
I think there are a few questions you should ask yourself:
1. Would you like working in a factory 50 hours a week? Have you shadowed the workers or visited the factory?
2. Would you be able to support yourself and your wife after graduation?
3. Will the factory pay for you to go back to school?
4. Could you keep yourself motivated and go back to school years later when your financial goals are met?
This is a very difficult choice, but I hope these questions help you at least a little. Definitely ask your wife what she thinks and keep that in mind. I'm thinking about my future career as well, but I will say that I'm glad I stuck with my degree and did not quit. Then again, my degree is a graduate degree and it gives me more choices for a future career than my Bachelor's degree. I do have friends who quit college and started working. They are still working years later, but they tell me that they will not be in debt b/c they are saving money for college instead of taking out loans. I wish you the best of luck.
I say hold out and finish that degree, and live above a garage in one room if you have to...especially if it's just the two of you and no children. I totally agree with Charles. Good luck!
Please stay in school! You may be making good money now, but trust me, in 20 yrs you will not be making much more than you are now. Your potential for higher income is much greater with a degree.
Take the job. Have you read all the posts on here about the college grads that are lucky to find part-time retail jobs? Having the real work experience will show an ambition and give you an education about the work world that I think will have value when you finally do finish your education. There is also a chance that you may work this job into a better job within the same company, think promotion from within that will allow you to take some classes then. Perhaps with some real world experience you can tweet your career to be more suitable. School and work world are so very different and book smart these days is a dime a dozen, probably more like a couple of cents these days.
Who Will Struggle in 2011 - Yahoo! Finance (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Who-Will-Struggle-in-usnews-1712944905.html?x=0#mwpphu-container - broken link)
The value of education has never been clearer. The unemployment rate for people who never graduated high school is 15 percent--depression-level joblessness. For high-school grads with no college, unemployment is 10.4 percent, and for college grads it's just 4.9 percent.
I work in the real world and hire IT people. The most basic, low paying positions are responded to by hundreds and hundreds of people from new grads to those with 20+ years experience. We require a college degree and the number of unemployed recent grads looking for IT jobs is enormous. We received hundreds of unsolicited resumes every month from those desperate for a job in IT. Any job in IT.
I agree with the comments about inertia and not going back to school once beginning the factory job. The OP indicated that they are just getting by bill-wise currently, have little left to save and will continue on that path until he graduates.
If he does not get job immediately upon graduation, that situation will continue and the factory job that they let go may no longer be available. It's up to the individual to prevent inertia and view the job for what it is: a temporary situation to allow the OP to catch up on bills and build a financial cushion so he can move forward in his chosen career. If he never leaves the factory line, that's the fault of the OP.
One thing I don't understand is that the OP indicated that they are taking upper level classes currently and that they are unavailable online. We have an employee with a CS degree that was obtained entirely online from (I think) Florida State so I don't get how these classes are unavailable. Many brick and mortar universities offer entire CS degree programs online.
I stayed in school . . . now I'm basically unemployed and totally unemployable. My degree wasn't worth crap. It was WORTHLESS. Absolutely, utterly worthless. Just take the job.
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School!
