Passion Vs $

a friend of mine was sharing with me her frustration with her current situation.

I kinda of understand her pedicament. 'Cause I was somewhat in such a rut last year.

Fresh out of school, been working unhappily in a job that is not really what we want for a year or more. Come to hate our job and our routine lives. Yearn to go back to school to pursue a degree of choice (not because a degree to find a better paying job) like fashion design, design, baking school etc. And come to realize over the past year of working, we did not manage to save much of the money we have earned. Worse still, family finances do not allow us to pursue studies further, meaning we either have to rob a bank or beg the government or anybody to give a scholarship or loan. (which in many cases, scholarships are hard to come by and robbing a bank is a no go either, because a criminal record don't look nice in resume)

At such a crossroad, there's only 6 ways to go (in my opinion)

1) Take a loan and go back to school (to study what you want) Design school could cost anything between $60 to $100k after the whole course complete. Not including art materials, top notch computer for designing etc. And after say 3 years of study, come out and find that the local design scene is way too saturated. Money hard to earn, plus face alot of resistance from snotty clients. Passion could easily turn to hate in a job.

2) Take a loan and go back to school (just to get a degree to get by life, so that can command more pay, higher position in the meantime) Essentially spending more time and $ on pursuing further education, when you can use the time and money for better use. And when you finally graduate, you find yourself older than the average NUS graduate. Guess which the employer will choose.

3) Find a job in a line that you have passion for (like marketing for fashion line, photographer, TV producer, baker) End up hating the job (and your passion), cause you never imagine the downsides of the job when glamourising the passion before taking it up.

4) Find a job that pays, work your ass off and end up hating your life.

5) Find a job that pays, work your ass off for that passion you have.
Say if you want to learn fashion design and can't afford the money now, work in the day and find an alternative job at night. Save really hard (that's the more straightforward way) and it will probably take 15 years, or less than that if you are really good at saving

OR

6) Learn another skill at night, while you work your ass off in the day. Any skills that will enhance and propel you to earn money and bring you a step closer to your dream. Like if you wanna learn fashion design and make a business out of fashion design, learn makeup (which you can learn the asthetics of the face, bringing yourself one step closer to inspiration in fashion. Plus fashion shows to do makeup at so you gain exposure). Make a business out of makeup (by running your own shop / school with a group of like-minded friends). Earn money by learning how to run your own business. If you work really hard in say 2 -3 years, you may be able to gain financial stability and freedom from your day job to pursue your dream. BUT like all the above choices, there is a downside because it takes a lot of discipline, tenacity, focus to run your own business. Whereas you can't fail in this business, it is 99% likely you will give up before you succeed.

So which one will you choose?