&gt;To pursue a PhD I&#x27;ve got to either put my job and my income on hold to go pursue it (while taking on the expense)<p>In other sciences, schools typically provide free tuition in addition to a decent annual stipend (for housing, food, supplies, entertainment, etc.). I&#x27;d guess most CS PhD programs are similar.<p>&gt;Virtually nothing to gain FROM the PhD<p>That is probably true if you go into it assuming that. The idea is that you already have a longish (2-6 years) project that you want to work on. You gain whatever you&#x27;d like.<p>&gt;There&#x27;s just nothing in the field of computing that I believe couldn&#x27;t be better learned by experience.<p>This is why one would work on a PhD.