18K + loss of income while in class and job searching + inability to write off the expense as job search/education costs. Even now making twice my previous salary, come tax time I will have taken home half of my income from the previous year. I'm not knocking my school for a second; it was great...
But for someone with a decade of work experience in tech before switching and no degree, I found the opportunities available -- especially fulfilling ones that provide the mentorship to give foundation to a long career -- few and far between post-graduation. The opportunity that I did take will lead to another year of just scraping by and a lot of uncertainty while I continue to "prove myself" worthy of a decent fulltime offer.
And I'm on the better end of the scale technically and "work-culturally" compared to my peers. There is a huge glut of devs around this experience level out there.
I learned too late that there are better options available. I wish that I had taken them, because now I'm faced with poor options ahead: a) great opportunity but stay poor a while more, b) financial security but no mentorship, c) great opportunity with company with incredibly uncertain future.
Because of my background, most of the places that interviewed me wanted to stick me in a 100% DevOps role, regardless of the position applied for. Frankly I am not interested in that at the moment.
I know it sounds like I'm complaining - honestly I have great options available in front of me and some of that credit surely goes to my school, but the best option and the one that I am taking would have been much more financially acceptable had I not done the school in the first place.