two steps back, one jump forward

I just wrote in another's journal the following idea: A home provides a safe space, security. A car provides freedom. A job provides the money to pay for the first two. But getting a higher education may involve giving up the home, the car, and the job, with the hopes of getting a better home, a better car, and a better job later. I now have to ask: Will the improvement in these (admittedly material) comodities be sufficiently better that the hard time in college, the gamble (for it is), is worth it?

In other words, is it worth giving up the security, the safety, the freedom we currently enjoy, if we think that after a short period of rough times, we will enjoy even greater boons later? Not an easy question to answer. We must be brutally honest with ourselves regarding the freedoms we currently enjoy, the difficulty of making it through the hard times, and the chances of actually finding something better on the other side. Sometimes, we gamble and lose, and never make it back even to where we started.

Is this lack of freedom, this lack of security, the price we, as Americans, are paying now? What is the education we are receiving, and what is the desired state of post-graduation? Are we taking two steps back hoping to jump forward, or will we find ourselves not up to the task of graduating our current problems?