You can do extremely well with just a Bachelor’s in CS. Professions like nursing, medicine, law, even business have had their earning potential sapped by larger and larger costs of education. And degrees past Bachelor’s are less well supported by financial aid schemes.
proof of doing is in large part responsible for how grueling and grinding tech interviews are. you don't hire nurses by asking them to demonstrate operating on a cat. and to some degree the grueling and grinding is there because the degree doesn't indicate anything at all, and desirable companies ending up having to process a lot of underqualified applicants.