[lutusp]

You need to be aware that PhDs often make less or the same income as a "professional" degree holder does (for a higher student loan burden). That means if you feel that the experience will be personally enriching, the fact that it might not be financially enriching may not matter.

[ssrubin]

A CS PhD student doesn't generally take out any student loans; at most universities, students are funded by research and/or teaching assistant appointments and internal/external fellowships.

[barry-cotter]

1. Professional degree does not need scare quotes.

2. US professional degrees have dropout rates of 3%, approximately. The Ph.D. with lowest dropout rate, engineering, has a 35% dropout rate. Pretty much everyone who can be admitted to a Ph.D., funded is a guaranteed admit to a pro programme that will on average make them more money.

One should do a Ph.D. if one will not regret it even if one never holds a faculty position, i.e. it's more consumption than investment, or if one got into a TOP programme in one's chosen field. Economics seems to be in the process of collapsing from top 5/6 to top 2, CS has been 4 for a long time, but the principle is the same everywhere.

[lutusp]

> Professional degree does not need scare quotes.

That wasn't meant to attract undue attention to it, only because the term has no universal definition.

Apart from economic issues I agree with your points. If someone expects the Ph.D. to pay off in straight economic terms, different story.

> ... guaranteed admit to a pro programme that will on average make them more money.

By "pro" did you mean Ph.D.? If so, not any more, not necessarily. The economics are changing, and the combination of rising costs and the fact that a Ph.D. candidate is out of the job market longer, conspire together to make it a less attractive option. There are cases where a Ph.D. graduate makes less money than a professional degree in the same field.

I'm not disagreeing (and I'm not sure I understood you), only saying things are changing and the claim isn't true across the board.

[barry-cotter]

My lack of communication skills strike again. Pro programme meant professional degree programme. Doing a Ph.D. for the money is a terrible idea. Anyone who can get into a Ph.D. programme can do another 2/3/4 years of undergrad (MBA/JD/MD) and even ignoring the time spent getting ones degrees all of those will have better pecuniary outcomes than getting a Ph.D. for the kind of person who can get into a programme and especially for the kind of person who can actually graduate with a Ph.D.

[geebee]

Quick nit-promote (nit-picking in order to agree even more), elite professional programs generally have attrition rates even lower than 3%. Columbia law school has an attrition rate of .3%. Yale and Stanford law schools have no attrition. [1]

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2008/04/law-school-r...

[1] just noticed that these are 1L attrition rates. So actual rates may be a bit higher.