Career & LP dilemma

[saint_charming7]

Hello everyone, I hope you are doing good. First, I would like to thank everybody from this community, such wonderfull people, you guys are super constructive and polite, I'm glad of being part of this...

I'm currently in a career dilemma, is not something that's giving me nerve-racking deppression or making me loose sleep, but it's bothering me like hell! This is a brief story of myself, if you have time please read:

I decided to make a career change in my early 20's, I'm 26 now. I graduated in Journalism, and worked in this field for a while, I totally hate it the profession to be honest. I pretty much entered because I was adviced to do so, and as any confused 17 year old getting into college, I justfollowed what I was told to do so. Despite the bad choice, this same profession, helped me find my vocation as I began working as an economics reporter. From that day and on, I realized that economics was my thing, long story short, I found myself because of it. My years in journalism gave me the courage to seek a formal education in economics/finance, and after two years of hard work I was able to make it to an MBA in finance. I graduated from this MBA this year, and I did great, my grades were even in the highest 20% of the entire program. Unfortunetly, I wasn't hired after my MBA was over, and I was forced to move to my hometown, where it doesn't have such a big market place for private business and companies (I live in the capital, mostly just government jobs). I've always loved academia, and I contemplated for a long time to do an academic masters in economics, my family always supported this idea. Since I couldn't find anything after my MBA my family encouraged me to enroll in this masters program, right now, I just finished my first semester, and I'm loving the course and doing really well. The hard part is looking for a job  in my city, it has been a huge pain in the ass since most jobs are government positions filled with bureaucracies to get in.  Just recently, I visited a good friend in his city (a top financial/business financial center), I met  his mom whom works with financial markets for 3 decades. She took a quick glance at my CV, and she saw plenty of potential for me to grabbing some starting position over there. She decided to send my CV to some companies that she has some friends to reference me. I know this all sounds great for now, but the complicated part comes here.

* Moving to this other city, would be costly to me, is not just a making my suitcase and getting into the next flight, rent there is much more expensive to me, and that means moving which requires a certain kind of investment.  Unless if ain't a really unique opportunity, i don't think is worth the move right now.

* Going there would mean to give up my masters, which really bothers me, because I like the course that I'm doing,  I'm quite satisfied, and personally I would like to finish what I started (there's just one year and a half left). I also felt pretty upset when my friends mom told me that, 'this masters is a waste of time, you should be worrying about making money and working for a bank'. Although, I know her intentions are coming from a 'good place', I don't  really agree with such shallow values (forgive me Mrs. L), and I find it even offensive in some extent (I mean I work hard to maintain my performance in this course). I sure understand the importance of making money and making a big career, but ironically, money is not everything for me. I want to use this knowledge also to teach people and contribute to society with researches and books, that's why I choose to make a masters in the first place.

Basically is just this, I have a binary choice: either I choose a path for going for a corporative job, or I finish this masters and get to academia or some research job. Honestly, I just don't want to f*ck this up, I want to get a job and provide for myself,  however I'm  scared of making a decision that might hurt me in the long-run. I know this is not the end of the world, but if I could get some good guidance it would work great in my side in this time of need. Thanks in advance for the patience.

Cheers, and happy holidays!