[darragjm]

The path this article prescribes is almost identical to my own story, and so far I strongly agree that financially it makes a lot of sense (although there are cases where this may not necessarily be true, based on tsally's comment).

The only difference in my own personal path from the article's is that before coming to grad school I worked for two years in a position that was extremely relevant to what I wanted to study. Not only did I make enough money to pay off my undergrad debt, but I also gained a great recommendation from my boss (who was a PhD, which helps a lot) as well as an interesting story to add to my personal statement when applying to grad school.