I am definitely not an expert on this but my friends who have gone the MFA route say that the reason to do it is time. Like: you are paying to have the time to write, and also you're paying to have that official stamp of writer-ness, which can be very helpful, even if only to your self-esteem and party conversations. And that's actually worth a lot. (Though probably not $30K/year.) But if you're the kind of person who gets more done the more he or she has to do -like, if you thrive on having something to push up against -- then maybe it's not for you. [ Cites examples of all those famous writers who had civil service jobs, etc.] However I do have to say that nothing is more poisonous to the kind of writing where you have to sustain a thought for longer than five sentences than a pro blogging gig.