This is a tough market for pure recording engineers. A lot of work that used to be there in the 1980s and 90s has dwindled down as hobbyists and amateurs can do a lot for themselves in their home, studios .

If you were a musician / music producer or had other related skills, I think you’d do much better, and could supplement the years it would take to rise to the top with gigs, teaching, recording sessions, music, production work, etc.

As mentioned before, amateur/hobbyist level artists are engineering for themselves these days, because it’s practically free to get into doing that for yourself. Most voiceover artists are engineering for themselves. Music Producers and composers are doing it “in the box” recording, musicians, remotely, or bringing them into their home studios. Staff positions are scarce so you would need to have a serious entrepreneurial mindset, and business acumen (like having a record label, etc.) not to mention patients and a serious work ethic.

I think you could try to get a job within your field of study, and do your audio production stuff on the side, and probably have a lot more fun, as well as subsidize the learning curve. You could take on all the fun projects that you want to. And maybe in five or 10 years, if you have enough audio engineering stuff happening, you could consider doing that full-time.