The education question. covid musings

Education.

This is such a complex topic. Which is really kind of unfortunate, in my mind. I really feel like here in the USA we have screwed up the system so badly that it no longer functions correctly.

I have an engineering background. I don't have a Bachelors of Engineering degree though. I have a Bachelors of Science degree. Seems logical to me but not to corporate 'Merica. I had to take writing and social classes, PE credits, etc. These are often left out of the modern "Bachelors of Engineering" degrees, which is a huge mistake in my opinion.

So I have a few options if I chose to pursue more education:

• Pursue another bachelors degree. This will take likely 3 years, since I have some credit to my name. This seems like a surprisingly good option as I could completely restart my career. New material and new connections to get me started in a new field. The downside is that I would be starting over my career, clean slate means lower pay and harder jobs typically. 
• Pursue a Master's degree. This will likely take about 3 years as well as I would likely work on it while still employed meaning I could only take a few classes at a time. This is a tough option because my advice to others has always been: don't bother with a masters unless you have a damn good reason to pursue it. This is not true for all professions in the USA, but in Engineering I think it is still true. I have met several people through work that have a masters degree and no experience; they are usually very hard to work with and have very poor solutions. My issue is that I don't have any background in fields that I am interested in, therefore I have very little knowledge of if a particular institution has good connections, and I have no research partner besides the nonsense most institutions list on their websites. (excessive autonomy and electrification topics. Not my intrest)
• Pursue a degree through a foreign school. This is really a subset of either of the above. So far I have looked at schooling in Australia and New Zealand. The cost is fairly high for foreigners $40k for undergrad) which is not terrible, far cheaper than non-resident at most domestic schools in the USA. The issue would be higher costs of living while attending and the likelihood of career placement afterward. In some cases placement might be easy, in some cases not so much. Lots of unknowns. 
• Something completely different. Get my pilots license. Start an apprenticeship in a machine shop. Get my PADI instructor license, or commercial diver permit. I might explore those more elsewhere. Maybe.

This is a much shorter post, likely because I am not considering it nearly as seriously as my last two posts. The outcome is not bad (another career, decent pay, etc) but I am not sure the outcome justifies the investment. That point is hard to justify but here is the basic premise:

I just turned 36. this means I would likely be 40 when I finish another degree. Right now I make $65k/year salary. (which is decent in my situation I would like to add. Probably $10k/yr less than a similar engineer)

This is a curve representing my pay if I got a 2.5% raise every year for the next 40. (which is already negated by covid-19 pandemic)

At age 65 I might be making 1.95x today's salary. $126k doesn't sound too bad.

Of course there is no guarantee. Company's go bankrupt all the time, people get fired when they become "too old" for the internal system. Health and healthcare come and go. It is a bleak outlook when you consider life in those terms.

What if I take 3 years to get another degree of similar nature to current? I would say the likely outcome is that I would get another job at the same rate after three years, so now the curve looks something like this:

Now at age 65 I am making 1.76x today's salary. $114k Not terrible but other than my personal knowledge I haven't gained any ground.

School for something different. Like an MBA. Ick. I cringe at the idea. But what if I can make $100k USD after graduation? (unlike but I needed a number)

Now things change a little: at age 65 I am making 2.27x today's salary. $120k Still having dry heaves thinking about that outcome though.

So there is an obvious flaw here: I am not taking personal well being into account. I am not taking Savings or a FIRE lifestyle into account. No bonuses or anything like that. These graphs also make the assumption that we will continue to get raises after this pandemic...which is a large stretch of the imagination right now.

So I thought "What does my savings account look like?" So I theorized a 10% of income saved per year. Then I said my "same" degree will cost me $10k/year/3 years and the "high" degree will cost me $20k/yr/3 years.

Again this is theoretical, lots of large and sweeping assumptions. This assumes that I maintain the same income while in school and that I can find a job immediately out of school.

I feel that this is a pretty clear illustration of the adage "You have to spend money to make money." Thought again; that is not justification, in my opinion, to follow any of these paths.