Dear Amy: I’m a 29-year-old, still living at home.

I want to go back to school and get my master’s degree.

It would be cheaper to do it online, but if I lived on campus I could get my own apartment and have more privacy. I believe my mental health would improve because my parents drive me crazy.

However, I probably won’t be able to afford to go on vacations since my financial aid will go mostly to room and board.

What should I do?

– Wondering

Dear Wondering: Vacations? What are they, again? Why are you worrying about vacations? (And yes, your financial aid must go toward your educational expenses, not vacations.)

Vacations are excursions that parents take their children on, or experiences that hard-working people save for and look forward to.

You’re grown, now, and the “vacation” phase of your life is in the past – and the future.

As a learning and laboring graduate student, you will have time off from work and school, but you should not necessarily expect to go on vacations during these breaks.

So yes, you should invest in living on or near campus as you move into this impressive and exciting new phase of life.

In addition to your financial aid, you should leap at any opportunities to serve as a TA for an undergraduate course, or work on-campus at a lab or the library.

Your breaks between semesters might be “staycations,” – where you go to the movies every day for a week, eat takeout sitting on the couch with friends, or take mini-trips to local museums.

Later on, once you’ve earned your degree and started working in your profession, taking vacations will become possible – and important – again.

You can email Amy Dickinson at [email protected] or send a letter to Ask Amy, P.O. Box 194, Freeville, NY 13068.