My experience: not all masters degree holders are created equal. There's a big difference between people who leave a funded phd program early with a masters, a

My experience: not all masters degree holders are created equal. There's a big difference between people who leave a funded phd program early with a masters, and people who enroll in a terminal masters program. Especially if the terminal masters program was a "professional", non-thesis program. But there's much less difference between people who leave a Ph.D. early with a masters and those who stick it out.