Gen Xer With MBA, $50K Student Debt Pivots After 2-Year Job Search

Ann Francis thought grad school would be her ticket to a stable and fulfilling career. Nearly two years later, she’s hoping a pivot to nursing will get her out of a deep financial hole.

Since earning an MBA in 2023, Francis has struggled to land human resources roles. She said she’s received some government assistance to help cover food and rent, but that it hasn’t been enough, and she’s now at risk of eviction. Earlier this year, despite carrying around $50,000 in student debt, she decided to pursue training for a new career.

In June, Francis completed a six-week, 90-hour nurse training program. After passing the state exam, she earned her certified nursing assistant license — a credential she hopes will finally open doors.

“I’m basically starting over — that’s the part that bothers me,” said Francis, who’s in her 50s and based in the Northeast US. “But I have to do what I have to do to survive.”

Francis’s experience reflects a broader shift happening in the US labor market, where workers sidelined by slowdowns in white-collar hiring are considering pivots to more in-demand sectors. Amid economic uncertainty, ranging from tariffs to the early impacts of AI adoption, US businesses are hiring at nearly the slowest pace in over a decade. In addition, MBA degrees aren’t paying off like they used to. Still, a few sectors, including healthcare, have continued to hire at robust levels.

“I’m very confident the jobs are there,” she said.

From February to May, private education and health services saw the strongest job growth of any sector. In healthcare, jobs are especially plentiful at hospitals and in individual and family services. In June, only state and local government education added more jobs, while many sectors like professional and business services and financial activities shed roles.

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“If you’re not a teacher, if you’re not a nurse, and you’re not a doctor, you’re not seeing those opportunities,” Cory Stahle, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, said of the June jobs report.

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Finding a career that aligns with work experience and offers more job opportunities

In 2016, Francis immigrated to the US from Jamaica, sponsored by her then-husband. She received her green card the following year and began working part-time as an informal caregiver for older adults while she waited for formal work documentation.

By 2018, she’d secured her work authorization and was working at a day care that she said paid around $11 an hour. Over the next few years, she worked a wide range of gigs, including as a Lyft driver, a contact tracer, and a customer service representative, but none offered the financial stability she was looking for.

In 2021, Francis enrolled in an online master’s program at the for-profit school DeVry University, hoping it would improve her chances of landing a job. By October 2023, she’d earned an MBA and a graduate certificate in human resources management — and was actively applying for HR jobs while continuing her part-time caregiving work.

She hoped her graduate studies would help her leverage the professional experience she gained before moving to the US. Francis said she earned a bachelor’s degree at an overseas university and spent two decades working at a vocational training organization in Jamaica. In her final role, she managed student services, overseeing everything from student intake to graduation.

“In my heart, I’m thinking this will allow me to transition to the next level,” she said.

But over the next year, her job search led nowhere. She reached out to an HR professional for advice, and the response was discouraging. They said her recent work experience didn’t align with the roles she was pursuing, and that this was likely working against her.

In addition, former President Biden’s Education Department in January announced debt cancellation for 4,100 borrowers who were found to have been defrauded by DeVry for misleading prospective students about their job prospects. The charges spanned 2008 to 2015, years before Francis attended the program, and she said that she was happy with her experience there.

“I have no regrets about attending the institution,” she said. “It was a good program with great professors, and I gained knowledge while there.”

Still, after two years of job hunting, Francis started thinking it was time to change course. She reflected on her recent work experience — caregiving — and began looking into nursing programs. She ultimately decided on a six-week certified nursing assistant program she said cost about $1,900.

Francis saw nursing as a practical path forward because she sensed there was a high demand for workers in the industry. A nurse she knew told her she’d “never been out of work,” and Francis said there seemed to be plenty of postings on job platforms.

“When I went on Indeed, I saw many, many jobs,” she said.

Looking ahead, Francis said she’s optimistic she’ll be able to land a nursing role — and that she recently interviewed for a position at a long-term care facility. She said she’s also signed up for freelance nursing apps like Clipboard Health and Shiftmed.

Over time, she’d like to explore healthcare training or administrative positions — roles she feels would better draw on her past experience and education. But in the meantime, her unstable financial situation continues to weigh heavily on her.

“The uncertainty of how long this joblessness will continue is extremely stressful,” she said. “But I believe that once given an opportunity, I will rise above my current situation.”