With the job market still waiting to see the light of day, the class of 2009 is eyeing graduate school as their graduation date approaches. Along with these soon to be graduates, many new grads who are either out of work or looking to get a leg up on their competition are also signing up for the GRE.

In order to apply into an MBA program, most schools accepted the GMAT, not the GRE. The GMAT is specific in scoring a student based on their management skills that are learned both through work experience and school, while the GRE covers a range of subjects that are learned at the undergraduate level. It is apparent that these programs could be accepting the GRE in anticipation of more students applying right out of college or with little work experience.

That leads us to wonder, between the economy and more programs accepting the GRE, what will this do to the value of an MBA degree?

Recent attendance numbers at local universities have shown an increasing number of new graduates (and even past graduates) enrolling back into school for advanced degrees or specialty training. Most of this comes from the lack of jobs for new grads, and it seems to be a good way to pass the time during our economic downturn. But is this really a smart way to spend a period of low employment?

I’m not one to toot my own horn, but I will today because, frankly, I deserve it. Today I became a card-carrying member of the Debt-Free club. This beautiful day follows an intense two years of handing over half of my salary towards debt repay, and I am tickled pink to have finally gotten to the point where I don’t have to throw away my paycheck on crap that I purchased eight years ago.

A few days ago, I was digging through the NPR Talk of the Nation archives when I discovered one–featuring NYC-based writer, Melody Serafino–that I found particularly interesting. The topic was Melody’s article in News Week a few months back, Subsidized in the City, which touches on the fact that a good majority of twenty-somethings still receive significant funds from their parents to pay for rent, utilities, and superfluous spending.

In a new monthly feature we’re going to call “Personal Story”, we’re going to publish our own and reader’s personal finance stories. We’ll focus on how we got into debt, how we’ve worked (or working) our way out of it, and how we keep ourselves on track financially. The hope is that we can all get ideas and encouragement from each other to find ways to live within our means, stick to budgets, and save for a rainy day. It’s hard to stick by these plans by yourself, so we want to try to build a community that encourages these principles. I’m going to kick things off by talking about my own debt story.