Now I'm starting to think all of this is simply the endgame of our education system.
1) A PhD is generally an economic disaster. For 6+ years you are making less than minimum wage, and only the most technical fields benefit from it economically. Those 6 years put you almost $250K behind someone earning a decent engineering salary--and the working engineer has a 6 year experience record and corresponding professional network. If you have to spend a couple more years as an underpaid Postdoc, you never catch up economically.
2) A quick Master's generally makes good economic sense in a technical field--get it as cheap and fast as you can. It's generally worth a nice salary bump, and it puts you into a slightly different category when layoffs and stuff come around. (Master's degrees often can be considered for "R&D" positions that a Bachelor's is considered unqualified for even with 20+ years of experience--HR rules are stupid.)
3) Advanced degrees in non-technical fields are a HUGE net negative economically.
In addition, a non-trivial amount of foreign grad students are sponsored by their government to be there. Colleges love them because they pay full, non-resident prices in cash.
Any type of position, including the lauded "learn to code" ones, starts with "do you have some type of degree?". This is the rule, and while exceptions exist, they're not common or reliable. It is still generally looked down on to only have a high school education.
At the same time, there are a number of perks that come with getting a Ph.D. that are hard to get without one. For instance in my job as a lecturer, which requires a Ph.D. for the position:
- I only work 9 months out of the year, and I'm paid a salary most people don't earn over 12.
- I get 9 weeks paid vacation each year (5 weeks between fall and spring semester, 2 weeks at the end of spring semester, 1 week in the fall semester, 1 week in the spring semester).
- I only work 4 days a week during regular semesters. Of those 4 days I work maybe 4-5 hours a day.
- I can choose to work over the summer semester if I want more money, or I can just take off for 3 months.
- I don't really have a boss. The department chair is essentially just another faculty member who fills the role for a while. If I wanted to I could even step up and do it for a couple of years. But other than getting my classes assigned to me, I'm completely autonomous. There's no one monitoring when I come to campus or when I leave. As long as I show up to class, no one cares.
- I have the option to go for tenure which gives me unparalleled job security.
- I get an assistant to whom I can offload the more boring parts of my job (grading).
- I get full tuition for myself if I or any of my dependents want to take classes. This more than makes up that $250k if I want to put my kids through school at my institution.
- I can spend 20% of my time contracting for extra income. I've found people pay a premium for the Ph.D. after your signature for things like expert testimony, credential evaluation, and tutoring (rich people who want their kid to get into a top college will pay $300 per hour for a tutor with a Ph.D.).
- I have access to a campus community including the libraries, fabrication labs, gyms, pools, cafeterias. You might find these at large tech companies, but you typically won't also find a theatre, sporting events, and concerts right outside your office.
- I don't have to work in a high cost of living tech hub. My job is in-demand basically everywhere in the world. If I want to move for a year I can be a visiting professor somewhere else for a while and come back.
I don't know of any other job that's really comparable, and a Ph.D. is a hard prereq. More than worth the early economic hit in my opinion.
In my case, there were no full time lectureships, only half-time, which came with no benefits. (I simultaneously applied for positions in two separate colleges of the university, which made up 100%, and then they had to give me benefits, but that's a freak event). The policy of no benefits for part-timers predates Obama.
You are not a permanent employee, but have to re-apply for whatever is available each semester. You sign a form waiving many of your labor rights. In my state, public employees can't unionize, except for the police.
Lecturers in the humanities get paid a pittance and often have to work at multiple schools to make ends meet.
In most fields, the fact of being a lecturer disqualifies you from applying for a tenure track job because you have not been doing full time research to build up a publication record and funding proposal. Lecturers and post-docs face the same brutal odds against ever getting onto the tenure track.
Lecturers in technical fields get paid a pittance. I can't imagine how bad it is for the humanities.
I got paid $5000 for a 14 week CS course that was about 40 hours/week of work. To put that in perspective, if I give that course to professionals I easily pull that $5000 in a single 40 hour week.
And how many of your classmates also became a professor?
Sure, winning the lottery is an excellent way to get through life.
You just can't plan around it.
Unfortunately most company HR programs are f*** up and won’t authorize anything other than token raises for existing employees, whereas the recruiting team will authorize much higher pay in order to actually sign candidates that managers want to hire. Thus you’re really anchored to wherever you started at any given company, and if you want to see a big change in role and comp it’s almost always necessary to change jobs.
Don't do this--especially if you like your boss.
Invoking "job offer match" machinery is a royal pain in the ass for your boss. If there's a solid chance you'll turn it down anyway, you've just pissed off your boss for no good reason. Just give notice.
It's better to simply leave on good terms saying "It's just a really good opportunity" which blocks match offers but leaves open the door to come back in a couple of years for a much higher salary.
And, if they can't take that, well, then you probably don't want to be working there anyway.
Switching jobs is by far the simplest way to increase your compensation.