>That said, personally I think doing a PhD is one of the worst things a person can do them financially long term. As a PhD (concentration in semiconductors) I

>That said, personally I think doing a PhD is one of the worst things a person can do them financially long term. As a PhD (concentration in semiconductors) I agree with you. After a decade in the field, I'm trying to break into software engineering using knowledge I mostly gained in high school and undergrad (and studying in the evenings recently). Even down-leveling I can keep my compensation mostly flat, so essentially I lost 5 years of my career by pursuing a PhD. One could argue that I worked on more interesting problems, having a PhD, but over time I've realized companies will exploit your enthusiasm to either keep your pay low or work you for long hours. Consequently, I mostly care about money these days. Another downside of the PhD was how blind it made me to what was acceptable work. Now that I am highly-credentialed, I need to work in R&D, I thought. It took a long time to de-program. What helped was getting a more diverse set of friends, some of whom owned their own business in "boring" areas and had done quite well for themselves.