Wow, please stop apologizing! I feel like I'm watching you beat yourself up! Wanting to make a living wage and secure a decent future for yourself does NOT make you a brat! It's just sensible. And school isn't a love affair for everyone, make no apologies for that! Your ability to consider and plan in the long-term is very impressive to me. I don't know much about nursing (except that people are really gross and I am really squeamish!), but have you taken a look down the line to the next rung up the ladder from the nursing position? Will there possibly be another grant there or tuition reimbursement or free training to get you to that next level? Don't feel guilty for using the position as a stepping stone--isn't that what most people do? How many candidates do you imagine are going to keep working for $20k/year for the rest of their lives?

Also, is it possible that the nursing position will also see a raise sometime in the future and it just hasn't been announced yet? And stop freaking out about school! Accelerated courses tend to have great instructors with really efficient methods and you'll be learning about something you already know about and find interesting! It's like the opposite of high school. And $5k can make a huge difference, don't minimize that. But you have to think a few moves down each path, and this one raise for the entry level job you have could well be the last raise you ever get in that position! Are there other interesting jobs that could lead to so it's not a dead end? And nursing can lead to all kinds of jobs, so even though you have reservations and are pissed about the $$, the nursing program may be your chance to build a real future for yourself. Baby Boomers aren't getting any younger, and at some point nurses are going to be writing their own job contracts. Your mid-twenties is a perfectly respectable age to start building that future, you have lots of time to climb whichever ladder you choose. But it's also an easy time to take a wrong turn onto a dead end path, losing out on opportunities that don't come around twice.

In any event, is there someone you work with who is in the medical field you can talk to about this? They might have some great brainstorming ideas for jobs you hadn't thought about.