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Got a full ride scholarship in a field I'm passionate about. But do I leave an object

I've been in the workforce for a few years now and finally landed a decent FT role at an F100 firm doing software development after bouncing around doing internships and contract work at unknown employers. The pay is okay for my area (~65k USD), I have good benefits and, despite attempts to force staff back to the office, I can still work remotely for now. I have a CS degree and a biology degree and this job is a significant resume boost for me.
The job is pretty stressful and I live in a sea useless documents and meetings, where I simultaneously am overwhelmed with too much information, yet somehow never enough to do my work efficiently. While the job is good on some days, it's awful on others. I am pestered for updates on my work, yet also pulled away from work to do trivial tasks. While I fully admit that my performance has been mediocre due to drama in my personal life and some bad tasks at the start of my tenure, my other employers were also much better to work for.
Before I got this job, due to my lack of success in the job market, I had been applying to master's programs. I continued with these applications after I started the job, since the fees were already paid and I wasn't always happy. To my surprise, one of them offered me a full ride scholarship (with a housing stipend) to attend their business program (so not STEM related at all), which is a goal that I've had for a long time. The school is a major university but isn't well-established in the business world.
I'm tempted to leave this job, but as the start of the school year approaches, I'm getting cold feet. My boss has straight up told me that I can't do both school and the job, since I need to move to attend, despite the employer having an educational stipend. I feel like this job will continue to be a grind if I stay, and that I won't get a better opportunity to go back to do a master's, but it also sucks to leave a job after it took so long to finally land a decent position.
Polite thoughts are appreciated.

Reply 1

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

At the end of the day chances are you are going to leave this job sooner rather than later eventually by the sound of it - either you're going to get fed up of the bad experiences in it and look for work elsewhere anyway, or if the nature of the job is impacting your work as described you may even get forced out by getting terminated for performance when it's convenient to the company anyway.

Ultimately though it is a personal decision and there is an opportunity cost either way - but since the one way seems to be a worse off experience, seems like it'd be worth going the other. Since you have a good alternative for now otherwise, it seems practical to take that and then carry on with securing work elsewhere afterwards.