I don't see a future in which FSW draws go back down to 464. I don't think it is worth spending 2/3 of your salary on the IELTS to get to that.
I don't say this lightly because I know it is hard, but unless you can do a PNP stream I think learning French might be your best/only option. The government is highly committed to maintaining a certain level of Francophone immigration outside of Quebec, and FSW-type streams (either provincial or country level) are the only way to achieve that.
@mushymush has good strategies for learning French from scratch. I did it but started from A2/B1 so didn't have as far to go. You may need to adapt in your case bc of finances but it is probably a better investment than sitting the IELTS just to get a score that will never get you an ITA. And it will be way less than a degree. Plus, you won't need to spend as much money to learn once you get to the B1 level.
Bottom line, if you can score at high B2 level across the board in French I think you have a high chance of immigrating to Canada. And this can be done in a year with a lot of work.