Quit and study full-time, or keep my job and study part-time — which pencils out?

Full-time or part-time — which one actually pencils out?

That question is really two questions in one: can I afford the tuition, and can I afford to live while I study? Both matter, and they pull in opposite directions depending on your situation.

The structural facts (these don't expire): Five Branches bills tuition per term, not as one lump sum, and the program is built to be taken at more than one pace — full-time, part-time, or a hybrid of the two, with online components in later programs like the DAOM. That said, going slower isn't free of structure: Satisfactory Academic Progress policies set GPA minimums, unit completion percentages, and time limits, and falling behind those thresholds triggers Academic/Financial Aid Warning status — so pacing has real guardrails attached to it. For someone keeping their job, the single biggest cost of a career change — years of lost income while studying — mostly disappears, because you're earning the whole time.

The loan rules changed too, and they land almost entirely on the part-time side: as of 1 July 2026, under Public Law 119-21 and the Department of Education's implementing rule, graduate students may borrow $20,500 a year with a $100,000 lifetime cap, and Five Branches students borrow at graduate limits. Grad PLUS has been phased out. A term with fewer than six units draws no federal loan at all — not a reduced amount, none — and less-than-full-time annual limits are reduced in proportion to enrollment intensity. The cumulative maximum is $82,000 after four years and $100,000 after five, so a sixth year adds nothing. Concretely for Five Branches: tuition of $72,822 over four years works out to about $18,205 a year, which sits inside the annual cap, but living costs of roughly $24,000 a year do not — and with Grad PLUS gone, that gap is what has to be planned for, whichever pace you choose. This is current as of 1 July 2026; the professional-degree definition that affects these limits is under an active court stay, so check studentaid.gov and Five Branches' own financial aid office before you lock in a plan.

Where it lands financially afterward looks like this, per Five Branches' own 2026 Northern California TCM CareerGuide (checked 08/2026) — income moves in three stages, not a straight line:

The school notes the ceiling is set less by full-time-vs-part-time and more by three skills you build regardless of pace: insurance billing, integrative-medicine communication, and patient relationships.

For the actual tuition-per-unit number and a room/board estimate for your city, the school's own Tuition & Fees page is the current source to check, since figures like that shift year to year.

If it's helpful to picture your own timeline against these stages, what's your instinct pulling toward right now — finishing sooner, or keeping the paycheck?