<p>Well, if you're getting the degree to start your own company, the salary figures don't matter nearly as much. You also have to consider the fact that the time and money you spent earning the master's was time you could have spent working and getting paid. You shouldn't compare salary levels at the same amount of experience with a master's or without--you need to compare salary without a master's at year x versus salary with a master's at (year x minus number of years required to get a masters). I haven't been able to find any stats that take this into account, or take into account the selectivity effects of a master's degree--folks who get into a master's program have to have gotten decent grades in that field as an undergrad, and good grades would make them more attractive to employers even with just a BA.</p>
<p>You might want to check out the discussion forums at Joel on Software (<a href="http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/)--there's">http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/)--there's</a> a lot of talk there about the value of various graduate degrees WRT a computer science career.</p>