I have a different perspective. Education is resource-constrained, and learners do not exist in a vacuum. In my opinion, it is the height of ego to refuse to make use knowledge that so many others have spent time and effort to teach.
The education is paid for, so the "others" who are teaching are earning money, it's not wasted effort.
Knowledge itself doesn't contain any inherent value, it's free if you want to learn it all yourself without depriving anyone else of it. What you're paying for is the academic environment, resources and tutoring of a person. That's a business exchange like any other and everyone is free to spend their money on that, whether they do anything with the results or not.
All knowledge learned represents an opportunity cost paid, both in real capital and time consumed in acquisition, both for the students and the educational system as a whole. If nothing is done with it other than acquisition, we as a society lose.
I am not against the viewpoint you present for anything other than what I see as pragmatic reasons. If we lived in a post-scarcity economy, I would agree with you.
But we don't, and we aren't going to be there anytime soon, either. The system we have now loads crippling debt on to students, and one of the reasons it can do so is because of the constraints of supply and demand. Thus, in my opinion, to not do anything with an advanced degree is deeply selfish.
