Those are the kinds of fields that, in the long run, you’d probably want a PhD for. Not so much because you can’t do it without one, but because that’s the accepted “research” degree nowadays.
On a different note: I think that 2 years of funded MS Thesis is actually more expensive than 1 year of unfunded MS Non-thesis. There is no guarantee of a 2 year finish (I’ve seen 2.5-4 years for MS thesis because the results didn’t come so easily), and the opportunity cost is huge once you’ve already graduated, more than the direct cost of paying $20k (but not $50k-80k) for the degree.