In any halfway decent graduate program the students are paid graduate stipends from teaching assignments and grants awarded to the advisor. That's important! If you are asked to pay for graduate tution, the program is worthless. Corollary: taught Masters programs are worthless, they are moneyspinners for the university,.
Not enough in most cases to make up for the earnings lost during the time spent studying, never mind the tuition. MBAs aren’t worth it outside the top tier. There are fields where a Master’s is a de facto requirement but they’re generally prestige fields where the money is crap in any case, for at least five years after graduation, for people with rich parents or spouses. Think publishing, fashion, art curation or working in the aid industry.
There are also fields where a doctorate is the entry level qualification like biotech, materials science etc. even in the private sector, but that's what happens when a there are more than ten times as many PhDs producer as there are academic jobs for.
Many companies who have tiered hiring packages (many, many employers) by default reward a masters more than a bachelors, and a phd more than a masters. There are quite a few examples (especially at good employers) of a masters being plainly rewarded in writing
A taught Master’s is a great deal if it will help you substantially with immigrating to the US. That explains the demographics of taught Master’s in CS handily.
