Any advice on how to balance school and work when going for a graduate degree? Concerned for Finances, work/life/school balance, mental health etc.

I have had experience on that topic. It is like a balancing act but if you really want the degree, you will figure out a schedule for work and family time and school. Social life is put on the back burner for the time being. I did a lot of the school stuff after the kids were in bed. Keep focused. Focus on the end of the tunnel and that should help with the mental stress. Best of luck.

I switched from managing an ICU to managing the informatics department so I could have flexibility in my schedule to allow for clinical time for my NP.
I was handcuffed for time plus being needed by everyone in the ICU 24x7.
Since at teh time Infomratice was a brand new department to get us set up with "A system" I created baby own scheduled and cold pull this set of changes off.

And of course being a guy with a wife to mostly manage the household and kids helped a lot! :-) so basically I am not much help for a big chunk of this question.