Noooooo that&#x27;s not right. Most programmers do not &quot;just learn on the job,&quot; that&#x27;s hard to take seriously. There might be &quot;that one guy&quot; that did I guess, I don&#x27;t know, but that&#x27;s so far from reality.<p>All programmers do not need masters degrees and there are many good programmers that do not have a BS&#x2F;BA, but most of those, that are not just whipping out JS, are extreme autodidacts and represent a small part of the population.<p>Also an MS in CS is not going to put you 100K in debt, in most cases you will have a tuition waiver and a small stipend in the US (TAship).<p>I think for many an MS in CS would be beneficial but sure it&#x27;s not necessary .... with more and more JS &quot;monkey&quot; type jobs, it may become an expectation for non Anders Hejlsberg autodidacts that want to make &gt; 100K (though yes this depends on cost of living, but I&#x27;m just comparing to your number).