In the recession, does advanced education really pay off?

I vividly remember just graduating college and being seriously pissed off that guys I knew were getting paid a lot more than me to put the owners manual in the glove compartment on an automotive assembly line, and I was now a "Professional Engineer". Fast forward a few years and one financial crisis later and I have a great job and have received various offers for freelance work, many of which I have had to turn down for higher paying jobs or just to work on my own startup. My buddies that were making serious bank on an automotive assembly line for the last 10 years can't get a job at a gas station. I'll take the education any day, thanks.

When I tell people my monthly student loan payment they usually choke and sputter, and I always just reply that it was the single best investment I could have ever made and I love writing that check every month. OK, it's automatically withdrawn, but you know what I mean. ;)

Recessions end eventually.

Education always pays off.

After the civil war in Spain, the republicans who lost to the newly established dictator lost everything: all their possessions, money, property (and relatives too, shot dead).

Those who had an education, including how to take care of your body self and of children, how to wash and clean and how to read and write, got out of the situation much quicker than anybody else. Such is the story told in the book "Los hijos de los vencidos" (The children of the defeated), by Lidia Falcon. A great book.