...investment be a better choice? having to pay so much money to go to school and turn around and have to pay to take the exam seem futile when the money is not as great and consistent.

Believe it or not, there's still money to be made in real estate. Unfortunately, you just have to work a lot harder with smaller deals to make up the money that you could have made by selling larger, more valuable homes. Foreclosures are everywhere and you can capitalize on them by learning how to do short sales or bpo's.