23-year-old considers leaving $100K job for a 2 year program where he'll make 50K for 5 years after he graduates: '[The 2nd] option sounds like a scam.'

Why would he do the latter? 

When you're an adult, you have to make difficult choices about your money and your education. You have to decide whether it's worth leaving work for two years in order to get a Master's Degree, especially if it's a Master's Degree that doesn't ensure you're getting a higher income on the other side of it. It might be worth it if you're getting a full ride, but it probably isn't if you end up with student loans that will take years and years to pay off. 

The problem with today's job market is that nothing in the future is guaranteed. You could get an MBA, only for MBAs to be completely worthless in the job market three years from now. Unless you're going into a field that will never go out of style, like nursing, you can't guarantee that your post-secondary education is going to pay off. 

If you're early in your career and you're already making $100K annually with great benefits, you'd be foolish to leave that position to make less money on something that is kind of shady. That's what the 23-year-old in this story is considering doing. His job is moderately unstable, so he wants to do an educational program in a similar industry where he'd make no money for the first two years and $50K for the next five years. If that doesn't raise some red flags, you might be just as naive as him. Even if he lost his job, he'd still be in a better position than he'd be in if he did this program.