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Comment by ratsmack | Hacker News Reader

Spending upwards of $100k or more on personal enrichment seems a bit extravagant. Unfortunately, the majority of people are coerced to go into debt when the return on the "investment" is very limited.

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In a lot of fields (not all) it is highly unusual to pay for your masters/phd

You're thinking of STEM fields. No one pays for a PhD in STEM. But not all masters programs have guaranteed funding. This is going to vary dramatically across schools and very much so across programs. That said, the only person I know in CS that paid for a masters at my uni chose to (and only did so for one term). Outside of that, people I know in the English department, Philosophy, and others, they are paying.

What fields? Honest question, not trying to flame you.

I've known people who got scholarships but can't say I'm aware of any field in which paying for your own graduate degree is rare.

I’ve never heard of a student paying for their engineering, math or science degree.

If you do get an offer to study, but without sponsorship, it’s a signal they don’t really want you.

I know that's the case for doctoral degrees, but are terminal masters degrees usually fully funded in those fields?

I'm not sure now but something like all top 30 CS programs (for students on the PhD track who are US citizens)

Econ PhDs are funded

In the humanities (at least ~10 years ago), it was unheard of both to pay for your own PhD and for a terminal masters to be funded. MA students paid full tuition, which provided a lot of the funding for PhD students.

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