It's the economist (which I like and often listen to and read), however doing a PhD, imho, is not about money. More extreme; if you are doing a PhD for the money, you are not really worthy. It's about getting an academic career, which means research, which means going hardcore deep into the things you value and are passionate about. It's about shaping your head to be a scientist, not a millionaire. If you do the work to become get a PhD, you know that you'll be in it for a long time and you do not belong to the 'normal workforce' or to the 'become rich people'. PhDs hardly ever become rich, nor do they particularly want to (at least not the ones I have met). In my experience a PhD doesn't make you more qualified for software related jobs than a MsC, probably less so actually. It's a different mindset; you are a scientist or you want a good, commercial job. You can have both, but don't whine if the effort of the study didn't pay off; it was not meant for that.