I agree with you, and I think it depends a lot on the department you are in. Too many people just apply for the top N schools for the field they want to go into

I agree with you, and I think it depends a lot on the department you are in. Too many people just apply for the top N schools for the field they want to go into. There's a huge difference in culture and feels of each school, and how they deal with funding or advising. My PhD was some of my best years of my life, and I was truly lucky. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and even now I wish I could return to being a PhD student for the rest of my life. I had a great set of friends, all the research freedom I wanted, supportive department, and I did research internships at least once a year so my average salary was pretty decent (about half a software developer salary at that time). If your goal is to make as much money as fast as possible, then you will be disappointed with a PhD. I was in a department that was in between social science and computer science, and out of the 8 of us that started together, all 8 graduated. 7 of the 8 landed R1 tenure-track faculty positions, most of us directly after the PhD (the remaining 1 was running a successful business).