It’s probably been said before (I haven’t read the whole thread) but, this is further evidence that “learning how to learn” is probably the most practical lesson one can get from a non-tech American college experience.
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While there are job listings that do not require education above a bachelor’s that does not mean that every bio major can get such positions. For example, looking at a randomly selected high salary job in such a search, in addition to a bachelor’s degree, the listing states the following. Not all bio major new grads would have this 1+ year experience with DNA sequencing and Generalist/CGMBS license to perform high complexity testing.
- 1+ years of laboratory experience preferably in a molecular biology lab performing DNA Sequencing or high complexity molecular techniques
- Possess an active, valid license (Generalist or CGMBS) issued by California to perform high complexity testing
If you instead look at actual results of recent college grads, then it paints a different picture. For example, UC Berkeley is in the Silicon Valley area. Bio majors (integrative biology) at UC Berkeley’s salary survey reports the following stats. $50k is among the highest I have ever seen for bio majors without further degrees, which probably relates to the Silicon Valley location. However, also note that the portion seeking employment was as large as the portion that was employed full-time.
Berkeley
- 32% full-time employed / 32% seeking employment
- Among the 32% full time employed, median salary = $50k
If you look outside of the Silicon Valley area, the results are often different. For example, Yale’s post grad stats are below. Many colleges report far lower than Yale.
Yale
- Median = $40k
- Most common employers = Yale, MA General Hospital, ClearView Health
Across all colleges in the CollegeScorecard database, the results were as follows (few years old), putting biology among the majors associated with lowest post-grad, early career earnings (without further degrees).
T20 = non-Ivy, USNWR ranked 1 to 20
T50 = USNWR ranked 21 to 50
Major Ivies T20 T50 Pri T50 Pub All
Biology $36k $34k $32k $29k $28k
Chemistry $31k $38k $36k $34k
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You mean @lettiriggi.
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Not all STEM majors or career paths are similar in many of the aspects that may be considered when choosing a college major or career path.
To a large extent, it may be more about urging them to become as informed as possible about the career paths (and any association with college majors that the career paths have) under consideration up front, rather than being surprised after putting in a lot of time and money (college costs) into aiming for a career path, only to be surprised that it is unsuitable for them in some way, or the barriers to entry are too high.
The personal finance and personal spending habits aspect is also very important. The lower your personal cost of living is, the larger your range of acceptable pay levels is. Someone who can live comfortably on $30k will have a much greater range of financially sustainable career options than someone who cannot imagine living on under $150k immediately after college.
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How old is your data? I obviously know of an anomaly then. I would think salaries have risen over the past few years too.
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I have also read a lot about this, too. And when professions dominated by men become women dominated, both the salaries and job “prestige” drop.
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Berkeley stats were from https://career.berkeley.edu/survey/survey . I looked at all years for Integrative Biology, which had a median of $50k, 32% employed, and 32% seeking employment. If I restrict to just last year’s class of 2021 then the results are as follows. I’d expect there is a selection bias, such that people who are more satisfied with outcome are more likely to report that outcome that people who are less satisfied, so actual is probably a bit worse that these numbers.
Median = $47k
39% Seeking Employment
40% Full-time Employed
For Molecular/Cell Bio, the class of 2021 results are:
Median = $46k
43% Seeking Employment
29% Full-time Employed
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I am an educator and have been for the past 42 years. It is an underpaid profession. I would have no problem if my kid wanted to go into education.
Also, like I asked last night, why do you call these jobs “passion jobs” when I’d like to think that many people in all sorts of fields went into their fields due to great interest in them.
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These data are much more consistent with what my spouse and I have observed. I’m guessing the $70-100K jobs are not truly entry level. I can tell you that new bio graduates don’t have any of those professional licenses. Nor do they have the years of laboratory experience needed (except in exceedingly rare cases). Getting a job in biotech without experience can be difficult even for those with a PhD.
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A lot of job ads ask for things that are more like wishful thinking. In reality, employers oftentimes settle for “good enough.” 
A fresh grad can be easily trained to run typical biotech equipment in no time if they have the hands for that sort of work.
You are assuming cause and effect. From what I have seen/read, its not that clear. Like looking at the “gender pay gap” and saying its all based on gender (when its not).
Teacher pay varies across the country. Tough to say someone is “underpaid” when pay it set by market conditions. If you get the number and quality of people to do a given job at a certain pay level, are you underpaying them? But teachers make more in different parts of the country. In districts near me, they are paid well. Factoring in non-bankruptable pensions, time off, low cost of benefits, etc. and the comp looks even better compared to other jobs.
That’s one “randomly selected” job listing. I’ve viewed a few listings of entry level job postings at the higher salary levels, on Indeed, where licenses and experience are not required. “Desired” or “preferred,” yes, but not required.
I’m moving on from this tangent. I just know of an example that contradicts your data.
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It is actually HARDER to get an entry level PhD level job for freshly minted PhDs than to get an entry level job for a recent BS grad. PhDs are expected to eventually leave the lab to manage groups, but someone has to be hands on. There is a reason there are fewer generals than solders in every army. 
Additionally, PhD applicants are considered to be lopsided/specialized in a certain filed (implication: harder to train, so transferable skills of those applicants are scrutinized much more closely than those of research associate position applicants).
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NO @circuitrider I meant ucbalumnus. Lettiriggi quoted ucbalumnus so I responded to them, which made the source harder to ascertain.
I never said there were not anecdotal examples of individual students that were notably different from the listed medians. Such an anecdotal example does not “contradict” the median data. A median permits a minority of individuals to be far above/below that median value. Many on this site seem to focus on outliers with extreme outcomes, in the positive direction. I think it’s more relevant to focus on the typical types of outcomes, when choosing among major/career options.
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I think the percent of teachers or artists or journalists who do their jobs because it’s “their passion” is a higher percent than the number of, say, software engineers who do their job because it’s “their passion.” Of course, both categories could have both passionate and unpassionate workers, but it’s not a stretch to say that many (arguably most) college-educated workers chose their jobs on the basis of financial security.
A college grad, biology or otherwise, with no teaching experience can get a teaching job in our local school district(s), at a starting salary of $70,000-75,000 plus an additional $5,000 for teaching summer school, which is optional.
Additionally, “hard to recruit” positions, like science and math teachers, get an addtional $2,000/year. There other types of “bonuses” as well. Eventually, the teacher will have to work towards a teaching credential.
Is that a “typical types of outcome”?
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Al this talk about statistics and anecdotes will soon be out of the window. A hiring freeze wave is coming to tech companies which will definitely spill into other fields. Smells like 2000-2001. So the data that was collected in 2019-2022 will be irrelevant for 2023 grads. Just saying.
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Yes I agree. I will say one more thing and then drop this tangent. The data on starting salaries consistently report that entry level jobs of bio graduates have low salaries. There are obviously individual exceptions to this. If the higher-paying jobs really were available, the median salaries would be higher. If you want to get into industry/biotech, you have to start at a low salary and work your way up, with very few exceptions.
This is borne out in my own experience, as well as that of my many students and bio prof colleagues and friends. Several of us profs have explored leaving academics ourselves (for various reasons) in the last 5 years, and have found disappointing prospects in industry and government even with advanced degrees. I know someone who was looking to improve on their $65K prof salary, and was unable to find a job in biotech in Chicago that could do so. And yes, having a PhD doesn’t necessarily help for many positions, which is something that many a PhD has discovered when they try to get a job after failing to get a professor position. You often have to start at the entry level, right alongside the newly-graduated undergrads that you just taught. These jobs don’t pay much and are often graveyard shift, to boot.
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This is why there has been a substantial increase in the number of university programs here in Canada offering co-op/internship programs or experiential learning and field courses. The federal and provincial governments run programs to incentivize employers to hire students to give them work experience and more and more universities programs are modifying their course sequences to make programs more flexible to be able to accommodate time off for work. These programs are in high demand by students, especially in STEM fields (but also in the social sciences and in some cases in the humanities as well) and the schools with the better programs are seeing significant increases in demand leading to increased admissions selectivity. The major draw for Waterloo Engineering and CS students is the strength of their co-op program that provides improved chances for their students to land FAANG type roles. Many of the graduates from these 2 programs in particular do indeed command impressive starting salaries but they also come with 2 years worth of relevant work experience.
As for a specific example , s19 is a Physics major. He was awarded a government funded undergraduate r esearch grant the summer after his 2nd year that had him working in theoretical experimentation with a professor on campus where he received experience working with some cutting edge equipment and as well with data collection and analysis. He is currently finishing the first of 2 8 month co-op placements working as an applied r esearch assistant at a small start up company that is a spin off from r esearch conducted by one of the professors in his department. Here he has acquired some more “engineering” related skills (working with circuit design and 3D printing) as well as been involved in data collection and analysis. This coming year he will be working with a different professor doing theoretical computational r esearch as part of completing a senior thesis. This will then be followed by his 2nd 8 month co-op placement.
All told by the time he graduates he will have over 2 years of experiential learning and acquired some valuable practical skills as well as networking opportunities and the opportunity to hone his soft skills. This should then in turn make him a competitive applicant to either graduate programs or in seeking employment.
Even with the amount of experience he will have, if he does decide to seek employment, based on r esearch I’ve done for relevant positions on Indeed, I wouldn’t expect him to be able to command a starting salary much in excess of $50,000. How quickly he could expect that to increase I don’t know.