[BurbankKarl]

Well, it all depends on what you do. I once had a job recruiter tell me (in the poor economy), that when the resumes come in, there is the pile with “graduated State U”....and then there is the pile with “attended State U”.....

Guess which pile didn’t go in the trash?

Certainly, every case is different.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

That goes under the credentials effect I addressed. Prospective employers use a college degree as a filter. BTW, a Ph.D can be a negative attribute. I'm an engineer at a large defense contractor. I've supervised other engineers and done lots of employment interviews.

While I've known some great individuals and fine engineers who had Ph.Ds, a lot of them are frustrated academics or otherwise saddled with atitude problems that make them difficult to work with or get any useful results out of. I heard that during the defense turn down of the early 90’s (it started with Bush-I who recognized that the country didn't need the same defense posture post-cold war) a lot of resumes suddenly shed Ph.Ds.