It depends on your career prospects. If you can expect to make $200k out of grad school then it’s definitely not better to spend your time in school, financially. But yeah it’s a math question at that point.
I don't think even smart folks here realize how much of a boost is some good income cash when you are starting your life from poor background. But one has to save it and not burn on 'better' lifestyle with trying to match peers or impress women (clue - if they don't like who you really are, no shiny expensive thing will ever make it work long term and you will just attract very wrong crowd).
I can attest it allowed me to do literal jumps way above what my peers and rest could do setting up much better life path. Pure numbers don't do this justice, not sure how to explain it properly.
Now it may not be your goal in life and thats fine, this comes from a guy who spent 6 months on unpaid backpacking all over India and Nepal well into his career work days, but be sure you are really fine with these decisions long, I mean LONG term. And we don't know who we will be in 2 decades.
Also a good quick start could easily mean retiring much earlier if one has a bit of luck and can control expenses growth (and they will grow regardless of your life path). One can focus on academia then.
