[erdos2]

There are opportunity costs either way. When I was your age (I am now, on one leg), I didn't have my degree. After my father's premature death, I went to work to help support my mother and two brothers. I was working in videotex--this was before the WWW. (You might be amused to know that one of the prototypes I worked with was written in lisp.)

While I was always able to find work, it certainly was more difficult finding employment before I finished my degree. It raised questions--the rhetorical kind (interviewers would raise them but weren't interested in the answers).

Now that I have my Ph.D., it's more difficult again.

The point is that timing matters. I don't have the same choices now--and that's without having a family to support.