The economics of nursing education are rarely discussed honestly, but they deserve to be. Most nursing students are making a significant financial investment in their education, one that they typically fund through some combination of personal savings, employer tuition assistance, and student loans. The total cost of a doctoral nursing program can easily exceed fifty thousand dollars when tuition, fees, and the opportunity costs of time spent studying rather than working additional hours are all factored in. Against that backdrop, the decision about whether to invest in professional academic support is not a frivolous one,