[anxx]

I am planning on doing a PhD because of financial benefits in the long run. Here's why:

- Immediate respect. It is harder to question the authority of a (technical) PhD. This is much more pronounced in 3rd world economies. Also Germany. Basically anywhere besides the non-super-meritocratic US. This is a huge benefit: my opinions are more likely to be listened to, my consulting fees are likely to be higher and be more credible, career breaks (maternity) will not set me back by much, because a PhD proves technical mastery of an area as well as tenacity, responsibility, and independence - all of which non-PhDs will continously try to prove to new coworkers and new management.

- Universities are forever open, but not so with Masters. That gives immense job security as a private university lecturer for the rest of your life, in any country (flexibility to travel and find a job even in countries you don't speak the language of). Private universities in rich countries pay a lot to be able to say they have a, say, MIT-PhD on their faculty. I knew a person who had a data-entry job and saw the faculty salaries in Saudi Arabia. The profs were making 396$k/year, housing and living costs fully compensated by the university.

- Flexibility to find jobs forever (especially because of the university thing). Normally I imagine it would be harder to be a salaried employee after 65 years of age. Nobody will hire you because it is so weird to have an employee your dad's age. Ageism is real. But because you can always lecture, you are pretty much unretirable.

The 4-5 year salary cut is nothing compared to a lifetime of these benefits and zero anxiety about job prospects after 50. I personally want to work and earn money in a respectable job well into my 80s.

[crpatino]

You have a very hard awakening in queue. Of course I can only speak of my direct experience, in Mexico, but here it goes:

1. Business people tend to mistrust highly educated people with no at least as impressive industry credentials. The meme of the crazy scientist with the head on the moon an no concern to real concerns runs deep and wide. Once you have both the schooling and the provable hands on experience it starts to pay off, but getting there is not trivial. Also, to make it pay it off you must go into consulting, since no employer will think they can afford you full time past some point. And to make it as consultant you need to pick an specialty that provides hard qualitatively measurable value.

2. Scratch that immense job security in the private university. As a matter of fact, they tend to hire a lot of adjunct professors and post-doc lecturers in order to avoid giving the sinecure for full professors. Public universities and research centers are still ok, but you will have a hard time in any education center whose bottom line depends on undergrad tuition.

3. Don't count on the flexibility thing either. University may be happy to hire part time lecturers with lots of industry experience, but not the other way around. I had a very hard time crawling out of this particular hole and have know others that never were able to make it back after a "short stint as a teacher".

4. Jobs prospect after 50 might be right, but you have to know how to play your cards really well. It is not a given, and in any case you are probably better off knowing your way in industry than relying on academia.

[vlasev]

What you are talking about when you talk about those large salaries is something of a pipe dream for most people pursuing degrees. I too was lured into more education with high prospects but the truth is that it's really difficult to get in on the awesomeness. If you want to make a statement about long-term benefits you better talk about the average situation. Some PhD's do provide quite a bit more money on average, but a lot of PhD's (math, for example) provide only a marginal benefit over a Master's degree. I don't have the data in front of me but when I checked the situation for math, the difference in the mean was about 2-3 thousand dollars per year. If you take into account the financial opportunity costs of doing a PhD (things like low wages, tuition, loans), it will take you about 40-50 years AFTER finishing your degree to be on par, on average.

[feral]

Secure tenured positions are very competitive globally. There are only sufficient such jobs for a small percentage of PhD graduates.

Further, the university sector may be on the verge of massive disruption - look at startups such as Coursera and Udacity. Its difficult to be sure it'll provide reliable employment by the time you reach 65.

I've just finished a PhD program in an Irish university, which I got a lot out of; but I wouldn't do it for job security, or earning power.

But maybe you are talking about doing a PhD in a best-in-world institution; if so, maybe the picture is different.

[rdfi]

Even if you have a PhD it isn't necessarily easily to find a job as a lecturer in an university. Often the criteria for hiring a lecturer is their publication record, and if you leave academia for the industry you probably won't be writing any papers. Without publications getting a lecturer position probably won't happen. This is the case in most European universities that I know. Also, the average time a student takes to complete a PhD, especially if you are planning to work while you do it, is well over 5 years.