system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Is it a bad time to be in higher education?

There are obviously a million personal factors that go into deciding to get a undergrad/master’s degree, but from a broad economic standpoint, is it bad to enter higher education in the US right now? If we are entering a recession (as a layman, idk if we are), is it a good idea to get a degree in the meantime or to wait it out and save up a bit with a random job for a couple years before going back to school?
gpt
From a labor economics perspective, when the economy contracts is the best time to invest in human capital like going back to school. Mainly because the opportunity costs of education are lower. Say you can find a job paying $60k a year. Your opportunity costs for going to school are the $60k plus the costs of education. If the economy enters a recession and that $60k job now only pays out $50k, your opportunity costs are $10k dollars less per year than before. Another thing to consider is that students who graduate during a recession earn less over the lifetime of their career. That’s a hard one to predict because no one knows what the economy will look like in 2-4 years down the road, but because the economy is changing rapidly, it will be different from what it is today.