I suppose it depends on what you choose to study. Get a degree in something valued by the society around you, and you can make your investment back in the second year out. Study piano or one the arts, and you will starve. It is best to leave those things as serious hobbies after the workday is over.
A $150k Masters in just about anything medical will get your investment back withing the first 24 months. Even at today’s cost of a university education, you can’t expect returns like this so quickly from any other investment. Even a year studying as an X-ray tech at a tuition cost of about $15k will allow you to walk into a 40k per year gig to start. Where else can you find a comparable low risk investment return like that? Nowhere.
You can pursue any art or small business you want at those wages as long as you stay out of debt, don’t buy cars or a home you can’t afford and don’t have babies too soon. If you are later appreciated for your artistic or business pursuits, you can drop your profession and do it fulltime. I know a few people who have done that. I know three doctors who quit and went into the restaurant business with enough money to weather the first few years of the business development stage—one of the riskiest businesses in America. I know a glassblower that spent six years as an LPN—in most states is a one-year program and now makes more money than she did as a nurse. I know a paralegal who now is circumnavigating the globe on his own yacht with his wife, a former RN who supplement their voyage by writing for yachting magazines. I know two former teachers doing the same.
These people now have full and rich, satisfying lives, especially enriched by their experience in the workforce. None of this is a waste. But none of this was possible without first getting an education of value and doing time in the workforce.
An interesting stat: Only 30% of college grads work withing the major they studied.
In our society, unskilled workers starve working for Burger King and have no discretionary capital beyond their living expenses, if that. Don’t waste time. Get a skill ASAP.