Should I Go Back to School? How to Use the I Ching to Think It Through

It shows up when you're scrolling a program page at 11pm, or running the tuition math one more time, or watching someone a few years younger move past you into the work you wanted. Some weeks it's a clear I need to change something; other weeks it's just a quiet is it too late for me? And every time you try to actually decide, it splits into a dozen smaller questions — the money, the years, whether the degree is the thing you need or just the thing that feels like progress, whether you're moving toward something or away from a job you've quietly outgrown.

Here's the honest part. The I Ching can't tell you to go back, and it shouldn't — that's your call, tied to your money, your time, and a life only you can see, and a reading that pretended to make it for you would be guessing. What it can do is take a decision that's a knot of competing pressures and lay it out clearly: what going back would ask of you, what staying your current course would ask of you, and whether the timing is ripe.

Quick answer: The I Ching won't tell you whether to go back to school — that decision stays yours. What it does is turn "should I go back?" into something you can actually work with: it reads the real state of where you are, what going back would ask of you, and what staying on your current path would ask of you, side by side, so you decide from clarity instead of from restlessness or a fear of falling behind. The value isn't a verdict. It's a way to see the choice clearly enough to make it yourself.

Can the I Ching tell me whether to go back to school?

No — and you wouldn't want it to. This is a major decision tied to money, years of your life, and often the people around you, and a reading that just said "go" or "don't" would be taking that out of your hands on the strength of a guess. What the I Ching does is more useful: it helps you look at a decision you can't see clearly because too much is pressing on it at once. Instead of answering "should I go back?", it helps you ask better, answerable versions — what going back would require of you, what staying your course would require, and whether the timing is ripe — and leaves the decision itself where it belongs, with you. It also won't predict whether the degree will "pay off"; no honest reading forecasts an outcome like that.

Why "should I go back to school?" is so hard to answer

The question feels impossible because it isn't one question. It's a stack of them, tangled together:

• The practical layer — tuition, debt, lost income, the hours, the life you'd be rearranging around it.
• The "do I actually need it" layer — does the goal really require the degree, or is there another route to the same place?
• The "is it the path or the restlessness" layer — is this a real direction, or a way to feel like you're moving while avoiding a harder question about your current work?
• The timing layer — kids, a job, your stage of life, the sense that the window is open now or quietly closing.

When these press at once, "should I go back?" can't be answered as a single question — there's too much in motion. This is exactly where an I Ching reading earns its place: not by ruling for or against school, but by helping you take the knot apart and look at one strand at a time.

Turn it into a question the I Ching can read

The move that makes this work: stop asking the question that has no shape, and ask ones that do.

"Should I go back to school?" sends a reading nowhere — it's too big and too loaded. Instead, split the decision into the two real futures you're choosing between, and ask about each one directly:

What would going back to school ask of me right now? What would staying on my current path ask of me right now?

That phrasing is the key. It's not "will I be glad I did it" (a prediction no reading can honestly make) — it's "what would each road actually require of me, and am I in a position to meet it?" You cast once for each, and read each as a description of what that path would genuinely demand and offer, given where you actually are.

And because timing is its own variable, a third question is often worth asking directly: Is now the moment, or is the readiness not there yet? A reading can speak to whether the ground is prepared or whether the move is right but the time hasn't come.

A worked example

Say it comes down to this: you're capable and a little stuck, and a degree feels like the door to the work you actually want — but it's expensive, it's years, and you can't tell whether you need the credential or just a change.

The tempting question is "Should I just go back?" — and it leaves the reading nowhere to stand, because it's asking the I Ching to make the call for you.

Ask instead, one at a time: "What would going back ask of me?" and "What would staying on this path ask of me?" Then read each in three moves:

1. Primary hexagram — the nature of that path. What's the actual character of this option, as it is — not as your ambition or your fear paints it?
2. Changing lines — the cost and the tension. What would this road demand, and what would strain? (Often it's the thing you've been avoiding looking at — the debt and the years, or the slow cost of staying somewhere the growth has stopped.)
3. Resulting hexagram — where it leads. If you chose this and lived it out, where does it tend?

You don't get "go" or "don't." You get two clear readings of two real futures — what each asks, what each costs, where each leads — held up next to each other. The decision stays yours. What's changed is that you can finally see what you're choosing between, instead of flinching between ambition and the fear of the cost.

Ask this instead

That last reframe matters more than it looks. A lot of "should I go back?" is really "am I moving toward something, or just looking for a respectable way to leave where I am?" The I Ching can't answer the first as a fact, but it's good at helping you see the second clearly — which is often the thing that actually decides it.

Reading it as one comparison

Each path's three-part reading isn't a separate fortune — it's one honest description of one possible future: where it starts, what it strains, where it leads. Lay going-back and staying side by side and you're no longer staring at an unanswerable question. You're comparing two concrete, legible roads — and that's a thing a person can actually decide. The reading doesn't choose. It clears enough of the fog that you can, with your eyes open to what each one really costs.

When your real question is something else

"Should I go back to school?" sits close to a few other decisions, and they read differently:

• If the real pull is away from your current work more than toward a degree, that's Should I quit my job? — weighing staying versus leaving a job on its own terms.
• If what you're really weighing is a bigger life leap or a relocation, Where should I move? frames the leap itself as the decision.
• For the craft of framing any of these as a castable question, see how to ask the I Ching a good question.

Keeping these apart is what keeps the reading clean — one clear question at a time is what makes the I Ching useful for a decision this size.

FAQ

Can the I Ching tell me whether to go back to school? No, and that's by design — it's a major decision tied to your money, time, and direction, and it's yours to make. A reading that just said "go" or "don't" would be guessing. What the I Ching does is help you read what going back and staying would each ask of you, so you can make the call from a clearer place.

What's the best question to ask the I Ching about going back to school? Split it into the two real futures: "What would going back ask of me right now?" and "What would staying on my current path ask of me right now?" Read them side by side. Those are answerable; "should I go back?" on its own is too open for a reading to stand on.

Is now a good time to go back to school? Timing is its own question worth asking directly. A reading can speak to whether the ground is ready or whether the move is right but the moment isn't yet — without making the decision for you.

Is it worth going back to school? The I Ching can't promise a payoff — no honest reading forecasts that. What it can do is help you see what the degree would actually ask of you against what you'd gain, so "worth it" becomes a clear-eyed comparison instead of a hope or a fear.

When the question keeps circling

You may not get a tidy yes or no to "should I go back to school?" But you can stop bouncing between this could change everything and what if I waste the time and the money, and start looking at going back and staying as the two real futures they are.

If that's where you are, Ask Yi helps you turn the question into ones the I Ching can actually work with — what going back would ask of you, what staying would ask of you, whether the timing's ripe — and walks through the readings one at a time. It won't make the call for you. It helps you see the choice clearly enough to make it yourself.