You would need to use all the free time you might have for the dog. I wouldn't suggest getting a puppy since you work and have school, you wouldn't be home enough to housetrain it/regular train it, and it would cost you a lot for doggie day care/dog walking. An older dog would be better, so that you already know it's personality, and how it does with cats. I don't agree with the fact that you can't leave a GSD alone with a cat; our GSD is alone with my boyfriend's four cats all the time and there are no problems, you just need to make sure that they are okay with cats and won't hurt them.
They are definitely expensive. We've probably spent over 2 grand in the 4 months we've had Frag. Vet bills, different collars, because a puppy outgrows them quick, and not to mention a 30lb bag of dog food every two weeks. We were feeding purina puppy chow, but that sucks, so we switched to raw. Now we're paying about $27 a week to feed him RAW. Better kibble costs upwards of $30 per 15lb bag. Multiply that by about three a month and you get $90 a month. Times 12 months equals $1080 a year. That's for a puppies feeding, and I may be exagerating just how much mine eats, as he hasn't been on kibble in a while, but you see how quickly it can add up.
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