I know you are just summarizing (thanks) so don't take this as a response to you - but I strongly disagree with a couple of the points the author makes (I don't feel I can reply to the ones that don't apply to me).
>1. Grad school pointlessly delays adulthood.
Maybe it delays adulthood a bit, in some respect, but I certainly wouldn't call it pointless. I've learned a huge amount in the last six months (which is how long I've been a grad student).
>6. Going to grad school is like going into the military.
The justification for this: Applications to the military increase in a bad economy in a disturbingly similar way that applications to graduate school do. For the most part, both alternatives are bad. They limit your future in ways you can’t even imagine, and they are not likely to open the kind of doors you really want. Military is the terrible escape hatch for poor kids, and grad school is the terrible escape hatch for rich kids.
That's a horrible argument. Just because more people go to the army at the same time more people go to grad school doesn't mean the experience is at all similar (for one, I'm pretty sure most soldiers get more sleep than I do). I was going to say that I can't imagine how a master's could limit my future, but that would actually be consistent with the author's claim, so I'll instead say that without justification I don't accept that a master's will limit my future. And the whole rich kids/poor kids thing at the end is just...I mean...I don't know many rich grad students, I'll put it that way.