Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics data still indicate that PhDs have higher lifetime earnings and lower unemployment than those with lower levels of educati

Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics data still indicate that PhDs have higher lifetime earnings and lower unemployment than those with lower levels of educational attainment. [1][2] (Those with professional degrees do somewhat better, though it's unclear if it's statistically significant.) Those who study the sciences tend to have higher lifetime earnings than others. Here's indication of that at least at the Bachelor's level: [3][4] (I can't find the PhD earnings breakdown , but I'd be surprised if this suddenly inverted at upper levels.) [1] http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/acs/infographics/index.html http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/acs/infogr... [2] http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm [3] http://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/056/ http://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/056/ [4] http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/acsbr11-10.pdf http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/acsbr11-10.pdf Note that the BLS link (2) includes median earnings, indicating that this is not just skewed by a handful of overachievers in the top couple percentile. It's not as if the top two percent of PhDs are landing eight figure jobs and every other PhD is unemployed. There seems to be a shortage of jobs within academia, and it may be that those with more investment in skills have more search costs to find the ideal fit for their skills with appropriate compensation. On the other hand, Jeff Sauro found that in the Usability field, PhDs never catch up. [5] [5] http://www.measuringusability.com/usability-phd.php http://www.measuringusability.com/usability-phd.php So there's the possibility that some professions don't follow the trend, but the results overall are fairly clear that a PhD is a good idea in general. More rigorous analysis probably needs to be done profession by profession though.