When is a Masters not good enough?

This August article from the New York Times makes me wonder what the ROI is for a PhD in the stats field, since the only firm number the author gives is the $125K starting salary for doctoral statisticians.  What about some BBA kid with a concentration in quantitative business analytics?  More importantly (well, to me), what about people with a masters degree that load up on QBA and BI courses?  Is this going to become one of those careers where you can't even get your foot in the door without a "Dr" in front of your name? 

Case in point: my focus so far has been on nonprofit fundraising, specifically for higher education institutions.  I come from a family where one of my grandfathers didn't graduate high school, but taught himself advanced math concepts out of books likes "Calculus for the Common Man", and did it solely because he had that curiosity and interest in it.  He instilled that into my father, who without a 4 year degree, has gained more experience and know-how than most people will ever have; at this point, my dad could teach computer science and electronics better than any prof I've ever met, bar none, and he's learned quite a bit of that just because he likes to experiment and learn.  Anyway, we have this family tradition where education is a big deal to us, and we get as much of it as we can, from whatever avenues we have.  When I got my BS in computer science back in '99, I had a slew of financial aid helping me out, mainly in the form of student loans that I will be paying for the rest of my natural life (or, until 2012 wipes out humanity.  I should be so lucky). In addition to those loans, though, I received scholarships from my university.  People had gone out into the world, become successful, and then turned around and endowed scholarships to my school; their remembrance of where they got their start and their gratitude gave me a chance that I wouldn't have otherwise had.  I want to do my part, too.

So that's why I have this passion for working in the educational sector.  Nonprofits in general interest me, because it's one way to help a charity even when you can't afford to personally cut a check.  One of the clients I was most proud to work for (when I was more actively doing freelance prospect research consulting) was the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, just because it was my tiny contribution to their mission.  This is what I'm passionate about, it's what gives me that "I did something meaningful today" feeling, and it's where I want to steer my career.

That being said, there's the lure of the private sector that I have to consider.  There job availability, for one thing; finding a university job in this field would have to be a nationwide search.  Another reason is salary, since the fact of the matter is that nonprofits simply can't pay as much as a for-profit.  Granted, there are usually other benefits to compensate for that, like tuition remission.  Do I see a private sector job as selling  out?  No, because what's stopping me from then turning around and using some of that higher salary to make a monetary contribution directly to the foundation/university? 

I bring this up because in my experience (and there is no good way to put this), universities are snobbish about hiring the highest degree they can find.  Whereas 10 years ago it was fine for a prospect research position to be listed as "bachelors required, masters preferred", it's now "masters required" and the preference is "sky's the limit".  Perhaps this is how universities atone for pumping out a glut of overeducated people that the society just can't help but underemploy.  Whatever.  All I know is, it's getting harder and harder to even get your foot in the door of a large university's development office if you don't already have a masters under your belt.  If you have aspirations of climbing the ladder into VP positions, assume the PhD is a requirement.  Contrast that with the private sector (and nonprofits without an educational slant), and I see much less of that going on.  Those are positions that ask for a bachelors plus experience, but the emphasis is on your skill set and not your thesis.

This begs the question of why would you spend the additional time and money going after multiple advanced degrees just to become a legitimate contender for a job in educational fundraising that won't come close to paying what you could be earning elsewhere.  Sure, the woman mentioned in that NY Times article has a PhD from Harvard, but I assure you that Google is compensating adequately enough to make a decent return on that educational investment.

Up until now, the business intelligence field in the private sector made the pioneering strides while the nonprofits watched, learned, and adapted.  What if we're starting to see more private sector jobs requiring higher levels of education?  Remember when all you needed to get a decent job was a high school diploma and good work ethic?  Then you needed to have an associates, then a bachelors, and I'm scared of where this trend is going.  Sure, it'd be nice to be Dr. Jen, but at some point I'd really like to get out there and concentrate on...I don't know...real world experience.