At first glance I thought you meant +/- $1.5M, at which point I thought you were crazy for even thinking of an MBA. Now I see you mean years. Being able to self-sustain and take care of a family of 4 all on pure trading income is a remarkable feat in and of itself. Amazing really. You should congratulate yourself on that. Many traders struggle with just self-sustainment. I would look at the MBA as an investment in your family. You'll undoubtedly have great years in the market, but a blackswan always looms over the distant horizon, and if it ever hits, an MBA would go long way in hedging your income streams. Perhaps a part-time/evening program would work and still allow you to trade at the same time.
The MSF is recognized where it matters. Wall street and money management firms for the most part want to train you and just want you to be smart and analytical so they use the MBA as a great screen and way to ensure you are educated and have experience. However MSF is recognized by those who need people to do modeling, pricing derivatives or products, risk analysis, forecasting, and more detailed analysis (portfolio management). I had classmates with no work experience graduating from the program and getting jobs at risk management desks because the degree taught them everything they needed to know. The MBA is fine if you are going into the corporate world or even if you are doing market analysis or studying corporate financials but if you are doing true finance the MSF is better and has a reputation, you just need to talk to the right people. And for those who do not know about the MSF, they usually find out pretty quickly how much you know (assuming you did not fail out). I remember having a conversation with an MBA grad from Wharton who is running a mutual fund and he never learned options or futures or any derivatives really or how to do modeling. That alone spoke volumes. So the difference between the MBA and MSF is important because they both serve different purposes. YOu need to investigate both and compare to make sure you go for the right degree. From my experience, and I have a lot of experience in comparing the two academically and professionally, if you are interested in pure finance, the MSF is the way to go. You do not go to learn trading tips or how to devise an automated trading system (obviously people here do that already without a degree lol). But if you want to learn the way products are priced, how to devise models, how different securities work and about every aspect of the financial market (stocks, bonds, derivatives, real estate, financial theory, financial modeling, financial statements, tax, econometrics, global finance, foreign exchanve), the MSF is perfect. Look at class offerings to get a better idea.