olderstudent

I've been working as a software developer for 12 years without a degree and have been making over 200k a year for the past 5 years. In the business world, domain knowledge combined with the ability to deliver relatively bug-free software on time while meeting a strict set of requirements is what gets you paid. You know ... all that good stuff: (your integrity, your discipline, your finished product) --> your reputation.

Why am I quitting my job to go back to school then?? The answer is that in the future if I find something new and exciting that catches my interest, I don't want a barrier to entry to be my lack of the appropriate degree. So, I'm going after a Ph.D. I figure that if I don't stop until I get to the top, I'll be fairly set for the next 40 or so years. At the end of the day, money is great -- it buys nice cars, vacations, clothes, food, stuff ... but interesting work is also nice and one of the only ways to get a big company to give you a multi-million dollar budget in something like a silicon valley venture is for one to add an advanced degree to his or her portfolio as well. Fortune 500 companies also love big degrees.

Just be careful not to become an overtrained and overspecialized equivalent of a high-tech assembly line worker. At that point, you become dispensable. My friend has worked "the world's number 1 database" [insert name here] producer for 7 years and has gotten nowhere. He got an advanced degree from one of the best schools in the nation.

Do what you like, and do it well and [most of the time] the money will come. If not, then maybe the rewards aren't pecuniary.