I finished my PhD about 6 months ago, at the age of 44, married and with three children. It took me 11 years, and cost an enormous amount of money. Before I s

I finished my PhD about 6 months ago, at the age of 44, married and with three children. It took me 11 years, and cost an enormous amount of money. Before I started, I was an independent consultant. After finishing, I'm an independent consultant. I never planned to go into academia. So, why did I do a PhD? I was told that I would learn lots of new things, and meet lots of new people -- and escape, to some degree, the frustration that I was experiencing with my consulting business. It's true that I met lots new people. And it's true that I learned a ton. And I'm very proud of the research that I did, resulting in a Web site that is used by thousands of researchers and students every week. (The Modeling Commons -- http://modelingcommons.org/ http://modelingcommons.org/, if you're curious.) And I also go to experience a different sort of frustration than I have had when consulting. And yet, was it worthwhile? I continue to wrestle with that question. My family and I were hugely stressed for more than a decade. Our finances are improving (thanks to my consulting work), but it'll be another year or so before we're back to where we were. I'm frustrated that I didn't create lots of products and businesses during those 11 years. And the incredible frustration of the PhD process, and of having an advisor who drove me completely and utterly batty, cannot be ignored. If you want to do research, then you should do a PhD -- but you should know what you're getting into beforehand, and be really sure that you want to do research. If you don't want to do research, but want to boost your creds, and if you're single and young, then it might be worthwhile. If you're like me, in your mid-30s, married, with children, and the primary breadwinner, then you should think long and hard about whether you want the PhD. Several of the others who did PhDs mid-career in my program had spouses earning good incomes, didn't have children, or both. I do believe that having the PhD has already helped to boost my career a bit, helping me to find newer and bigger clients who somehow think that having a PhD makes you smarter or better than the rest of the population. But would I recommend it to someone else in my position? Not without a lot of thought and consideration. And an understanding that what you think will take 5 years or so might take much longer than that.