How is an engineering degree an example of a win-win situation?

It should be obvious.

Before you set out and do anything, you take 4-6 years out of your life and get a degree in engineering.

Then what?

Well, then you can go out into the world and try just about anything without much fear of failure.

Go start a business. Be an artist. Travel for a year. Invest in something crazy.

Because what is the worst that can happen?

You have to go back and be an engineer with an upper-middle-class life?

I mean, if that is your worst case scenario, congrats, you win.

Then there’s education. Do you know what the unemployment rate is for engineers? It is nearly zero. Do you know how many engineers like their jobs? Most of them do, despite what you read in Dilbert comics. And the ones who are unhappy with work can change jobs fairly easily. Generally speaking, the people who have the right kind of education have almost no risk of unemployment.

-Scott Adams, How To Fail At Almost Everything And Still Win Big