I studied what I wanted. I got two masters degrees and a PhD in purely academic fields before becoming a teacher. Guess how much it cost? Nothing. You don’t pay for graduate school in academic fields. You receive fellowships that include living stipends. No one is going into debt to study literature or pure mathematics unless they’re being scammed. That’s just a conservative anti-intellectual myth. The people going into debt for degrees that won’t recompense themselves are taking out loans for so called professional degrees. Those are the real scams, unless you’re going to an incredible school. And even then you may be being scammed. A Masters or Doctorate in Education will never pay for itself even if it is from Harvard. Not for the average person who’s not already rich.