Fortunately I'm based in Scotland, and comparative the the states a master degree is priced far more reasonably and we have some excellent institution I.e. St Andrews university
Even now I toy with the idea of taking a year off and just travelling somewhere to do another one. Something just plain interesting. Modern Japanese Literature, for example, or just identifying a few universities with cheap rates and picking something really interesting out of their catalogue.
If you do it for yourself, out of interest in the subject and because you just want to be better than you are, at that price it will be worth every penny. There is a frame of mind that struggles to comprehend education for the fun and satisfaction of it, rather than as part of earning more money. I smiled politely and stopped talking about it with them.