If you’re going because you think it’ll give you better work opportunities later, I suggest thinking carefully about that. You’re already in your field. Even if you’re in an adjacent field but still in tech, you can usually transition — I’ve been a gamedev, worked in finance, been a pentester, and now I do ML. The question of whether I had a degree came up exactly once, very early in my career.
Academia can be a good fit if you’re going for the right reasons. Make sure you research what life is like at that university, and plan out what you hope to get from it and where you want to be five years from now.
If we’re talking about where the opportunities (jobs) are going to be, then you’re probably looking at tech roles within non-tech companies. These companies have been dying to modernize but haven’t been able to hire engineers due to the tech bubble.
After that, tooling that enables non-technical companies to build software - whatever that looks like.
What we don't need any more of is web cruft and CRUD apps, social networks, and people figuring out more ways to mine our data and shove ads in our face.
(No snark intended, my background is in science...)
The fields that would benefit society the most are not typically the fields where the most money is to be made.
If you're looking for income growth and are already in professional position making decent money it's almost never worth it to go back to school.
Spent two years in school and got to sit out the worst of the recession. However, (in the US) tuition increased a ton from when I first went to school and has only gotten more ridiculous since I graduated.
Personally I'm glad I did it, it just took a while to pay it all off.