Product Manager path vs Credit Risk Specialist?

I've recently come to a potential cross road with the direction that would best suit my long run goal. Ideally my goal is to get into a masters program (Re: mba or mfin) and move into S&T for trading.

From an initial thought I feel that the Credit role would provide me with better entry level hands on experience with something that is a bit more "quant".

The only challenge is that currently I'm in a mid-high(ER) entry level salary bracket that would essentially have me take a decent paycut if I were to head into the Credit direction - about $10k worth.

The alternative would be to possible pursue Product Manager role (or Business Analyst in CapMkt) and then do a masters to make up for the lack of quant experience.... would this work? Does it even make sense?

My background is essentially a non finance undergrad with some industry certs required for work and brokerage work experience.

If anyone has any input and/or experience with either Product management or credit risk I would greatly appreciate any insight possible. Even if its just on one of the two options...