This is life advice with a touch of financial advice from someone who did a major career change without an additional degree:

First figure out what is working for you (giving you energy) or what has worked in the past. Then figure out what does not work for you (drains your energy) and note that too.

Write down every idea you have for a different career even if it sounds stupid.

Before paying for more education take stock of your ideas for your next career and figure out how you can “try” them in the most low cost way possible. Interview? Internship?

(This is all the short version of the book “designing your life” which you should buy and read!) good luck!

The data you'd need to figure out is the interest rate on your anticipated loans.

> only 20% match rate up to 6% of salary

Worded a bit confusingly.

But anyways, at minimum, this likely means an equivalent of a ROI of at least 20%.

Unless your loan interest is near that, I wouldn't pass up on getting at least the employer match.

Consider the cost and benefit of each option.

If you continue to put the money in retirement accounts, you get the employer match, and the long term value of the compound interest, which is pretty high considering how many years it'll be there. You can calculate both of these values (use a retirement calculator for the latter).

The cost of this option is how much interest you'll need to pay on student loans for the tuition money that you would have had if you hadn't put that money into retirement savings. You can calculate this value as well.

Now you can compare the dollar cost of each option, and weigh how much you care about the long term benefit of a few extra thousand dollars vs the loans you'll have to take. You can also weigh how much loan you'll need to take either way.

Without any of those numbers, I'd lean towards saving the cash and not putting so much in retirement. You can wait a couple years to save there and spend the money investing in yourself up front. The few extra thousand in retirement will not make a big difference in the long run.

Also, good luck with software engineering, it's worked out quite well for me.

Are you going back to school to earn more money? If not, you're making a mistake.

Personally - having a job you hate sucks, even if it keeps you materially comfortable and on track with retirement savings. There might be other steps you can take to put you on a new career path before getting a degree.

Have you considered taking classes part time? Why do you think computer science is the way you want to go? Do you have friends, colleagues, acquaintances in CS or other fields you can take to coffee for an informational interview to learn what their jobs are like? Do you hate the job, or doing that job in a H/M/LCOL town? Only you can answer these.

Similarly what are your goals for the next 3, 5 and 10 years? Are you trying to buy a house or something else you need large liquid savings? Are you trying to simply avoid as much debt as possible? Will living with your parents again after being independent for a few years drive you crazy? Again, this is all the personal side of things.

As someone who fantasizes about going back to school and rebooting a different career, I get the temptation. Can you find other places outside of work to bring you happiness? Picking up new hobbies, or friends, or relationships - something that helps define who you are outside of work? Maybe this isn’t about general life satisfaction rather than this specific job? Similarly have you talked with possible mentors/colleagues/supervisors about how to improve? We’re often our harsher critics when thinking about how good or talented we are at our jobs.

Financially - depending on how old you are, getting those years in your twenties and early 30s maxed out is gonna do more for you than maxing them out in your later in life. The market is a bit unsettled and who knows what the next five years look like, but come 2040 and these early years have been compounding for a decade and a half you’ll likely thank yourself for continuing to invest.

30k isn’t a ton of debt to take on, especially when you have non currently. you’ll need to surmise what your additional costs of living are during school - is that just tuition? Fees? Books? Will you need transportation insurance and gas? Can you take 40k in loans to cover any gaps, etc.

You answer to the person in the mirror and you gotta do what you gotta do to make that person happy. Balancing financial goals with broader life satisfaction is probably more important than being miserable with a well funded IRA.

Lastly, Syracuse NY is getting a new Micron megafab with jobs paying 100k+ in a part of NY with low cost of living, good schools, lots of nature, decent mid-size city food/bar scene. If you stick with the semiconductor field, it might be a place worth considering to maximize what you salary:I hate work ratio can get ya.

Anyway, that’s my sermon and those are the questions I’d want to have answers I feel confident about before making a big life decision. Good Luck!

Always fully invest in your retirement account especially if the employer matches.

Can you borrow money for your career change? Can you borrow money for your retirement?

There’s your answer.

What doesn't make sense is getting into debt, if you already have experience in an engineering role. It also doesn't make financial sense to switch from a field that is under saturated with employees to one that is over-saturated, but if that would make you happier, then it trumps the financial incentive.

Do you have experience programming? Even Verilog and VHDL experience would carry over software development, as would scripting, such as using shell scripts or TCL. Your best bet to make the transition is to spend a few years working for a small semiconductor company, in your current line of work, that would also let you take on programming projects. If you haven't asked yet, see if your current company will let you.

Experience is far more valuable than earning a degree in a different field, so if you can transition your experience from electrical engineering to programming, it'll be a much better use of your time, and you won't have to go into debt.