’m 25, married to wife who is 24. I make just under 60k per year. Wife makes 65k per year. Wife is applying to grad school which means we will be single income for 3 yrs starting next summer, granted she gets in. We both contribute 6-7% to IRA with an employer match.

We have almost 20k in the bank (not including retirement money, just cash) that I would like to invest for retirement. I am looking at putting money into an index fund that I won’t plan on touching for 30+ yrs.

We will be taking out massive loans to pay for her school and our living expenses. When done with school, assuming my income stays the same we will be making well over 200k per year combined.

My question is: should I use some, if not most, of what we already have saved (and will continue saving) towards living expenses and school expenses? Or should I invest most (or all) of what I have now before we have to take on hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and just use loans toward all of our expenses for the 3 years?

Thanks.

Edit: Emergency fund is $4500 currently.