That depends a lot on where you live. In Austria, for example, where I lived for several years, academic titles carry a strong social cachet and are used absolutely everywhere - on your credit card, bills from the city council for cleaning out your bins etc. People with more than one PhD will be addressed as Dr Dr Firstname Surname, someone with a regular engineering degree is allowed to refer to themselves as Ing. Surname instead of Herr/Frau. It's a really big deal.

My mother did a maths degree in her 50s, remotely, over several years. She grew up in a time and place where she didn't have the opportunity to get that eduction. She just wanted it for the sake of it, I suppose to prove to herself that she could. But mainly to "get the qualification", not do anything with it. It was a perfectly fine reason to do a degree. Plus I think the person you're responding to was being at least a little tongue-in-cheek anyway so no big deal either way.

If you're going to become a post hole digger, it can only help you if you don't take things too seriously. :)

I'm almost positive that was tongue-in-cheek.