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If you want to work in academics, you need Masters at the very least, and a PhD if you want to be more than someone's grading monkey. That's true of hard sciences and it's really true of softer subjects.
Astrophysics has no commercial applications that I'm aware of, with space forecasting for the government being the closest thing. So, if you want to use an astrophysics degree for astrophysics, then yes, 4-year is nothing. However, you can probably convince some finance nepobaby you're a genius and make money as a quant with just a bachelors in (astro-)physics.
Do you want to work in astrophysics, or just in a hard science job of some kind?
This is helpful.
I meant it to be broad. Just a good job/realistic job prospects in a hard science-connected field. I potentially have the opportunity to go back to school and I'm wondering what scientific paths, if any, can lead to job prospects with a four-year degree. The reasoning being that I hope to transfer some credits from my previous degree and can't really commit to six or eight years of additional study right now. But 2-4 is potentially feasible.
Yeah, then you can figure something out I'm sure. What is your background? If you can bring past experience "with you" to some extent, you'll have a much easier time, even with just 2 years of education behind you. Everybody shits on hires fresh out of college.
This is the part where I make a disclaimer that I'm not exactly a career rolemodel, I just hear a lot of talk and know people from all kinds of backgrounds. And read the statistics on things.
My background isn't really related to science. I got a degree in Broadcast Media, then worked mostly in Politics and Marketing/Communications. So I'm not sure a ton of credits will transfer, but I'm hoping to get an idea across a spectrum of possibilities.
Hmm. Well, if you do go IT, you could look for a UI/UX (user interfaces/experience) role where they might see that as an asset. Or maybe do marketing analytics - anything math heavy could potentially get you into that. I don't even mean college credits, I mean job experience on your resume (since you were worried about finding a job afterwards) - it's just as important in non-academic hard science as in other disciplines.
The academic credits are another thing, though. Hard science education can be pretty demanding, and the drop-out rates in some of them - like engineering - are sky-high. Then again, professors say older students almost always do well.