I’ll bet the numbers are embellished, maybe, and someone like Data10 could dismantle the numbers in like 2 seconds, but there’s money to be made in art that we’re just not thinking about.
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Civil engineers, architects, dentists, optometrists, physicians (more in some specialties than others), accountants, lawyers, and others are commonly in small practices.
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I do find them interesting. But you stated that you can draw a pattern. I don’t see that. Having worked and lived in both, I think nations are different. Naturally, engineers make more money than other jobs in most nations. But trying to put two unlike things next to each other and compare doesn’t make sense IMO.
The issue I often have with stats is the data and the metrics used. IF the data points aren’t relevant then the conclusion is often flawed. I’ve seen this a lot on CC. Here’s an example, engineering salaries are often quite high compared to other salaries year 1. But why not compare mid career salaries of someone with an advanced engineering degree to someone with an MBA? Similar educational years but is the MBA better paid or not ? What does that tell you? Does the school matter? Do other factors matter? That might show something else entirely. Students need to look at the whole picture in education. That includes not only salary but job prospects, related fields and so many other factors ( geographic location).
This thread basically proves that other people’s experiences are helpful guidelines but the individual cannot truly predict outcome and the individual has the most control over the outcome (not some data point or anecdote).
Yes, interesting. I had mentioned upthread a wall muralist I’d known of. I’d seen photos of their work and it was very impressive. I understood that they were doing very well, probably the upper end of the figures you quoted. That was in the context of the discussion that there are many more ways for an artist to make a living than just trying to sell a painting.
The house I saw was actually all solid color walls, but so different than the usual neutrals one typically sees in houses up for sale. Of course the risk is you turn off buyers who don’t like it and aren’t willing to repaint, but it may just as likely have caught the eye of others. It’s worth mentioning that this was in a fairly robust real estate market.
Veering back to the topic at hand, artists aren’t alone in having to hustle for work and market themselves. Anybody in any field trying to start and maintain a business has to do this. Superior talent alone isn’t enough, and someone less talented but with more of the other qualities will soon pass them by.
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There’s a LOT of money in art. And a lot of successful people. Many of the richest people are in the arts. Actors, movie makers, creators of all sorts, fine artists, musicians etc. Some earn more than they can spend.
I’m in the arts and most people are not low income. At all. None in fact are struggling artists. If they don’t have a talent someone will pay for, they get out of the field. Most artists, in fact, do have an educational background in their field. There’s a technical skill to most arts whether it’s music, fine art, theater or any other. Art has become more complex, IMO, rather than less. And the internet has changed how art is bought sold and consumed in all the arts.
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As a bit of an aside, there is quite a bit of scuttlebutt right now in academic STEM research circles about this. Lab heads are anecdotally reporting that they are having difficulty finding postdocs. There are many foreign PhD students and postdocs in STEM at US universities. It seems that one of the going hypotheses is that the US is less attractive lately to foreign trainees than it used to be. Lots of reports from foreign trainees (especially european) who are saying they and their advisors are worried about sending them to the US, so they are opting to go do PhDs and postdocs in other countries instead. Will be interesting to see how this plays out. Maybe Canada will become the hot destination after all!
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A young artist may have to market themselves. However, as a career builds and more in your industry know of your work, they may reach out to hire/work with you or commission you or cast you. I’ve seen that with my own daughter in the theater and music worlds as her career has developed. One example is that for the last few years, she has been collaborating with one of the most famous artists internationally in the music industry on a project. I still remember the day my daughter called me to ask me to guess who had just called her and offered her a job to collaborate with them on a project and it felt like an out of world experience. But that doesn’t happen right out of the gate after graduation. Ya gotta do work, produce work, be noticed, network, etc. and if good, then people seek you out. My daughter has been on the casting team of shows and believe me, beyond those they audition for roles, they ask certain artists they know whose work they like.
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Canadian citizens do not have to pay any tax to Canada if they are not Canadian residents.
Also they do not have to file Canadian tax returns.
No renunciation of citizenship is required.
And because there is no instate vs. out of state, 2nd gen Canadians born abroad get the cheap Canadian college tuition.
I know of quite a few WA Canadian residents sending the kids back “home” for college and then the kids are all working back in the US.
No sign of Canada closing this loophole soon, and foreign resident Canadians just got their right to vote!
I’m not sure how this data would crop up in any Canadian survey.
In addition, many of the jobs with higher salaries are unionized on the regional level or national level and their employer is a province or the feds.
Teachers, hospital workers, social service workers, forestry, criminal justice.
Linespeople working for the large provincial utilities make way more money than engineers.
Some of those unions have mega pension funds as well. Just google what is owned by OHOSP and Ontario teachers pension fund.
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Canada has always been hot for Levantine grad students. No restriction or suspicion thrown on trips back to the mother country.
The macroeconomic situation in the entire economy or the industry relevant to the career path can be a major factor outside of the individual’s control. It is known that those who enter the labor force during a recession have less career success and income for decades after, because starting a career in the unemployment line is not good for future hiring prospects (employers tend to think that periods of unemployment are completely due to the fault of the applicant, and will generally prefer to hire those who already have jobs).
For someone starting an educational path that takes 4 years (or more, depending on post-BA/BS professional school), the recession lottery cannot reasonably be predicted, although some students nearing planned graduation as a recession starts may attempt to try to time their entry into the labor force away from when the worst of it is (possibly by hiding out in a funded graduate program if they can get into one).
Eh, the US will always be attractive for the 3-year stem opt and no H1B cap for research institutions. Quick, hop and jump to EB1 green cards.
Some universities in Canada have different tuition for residents of the province, other Canadians, and international students. For example, | Student Accounts - McGill University shows tuition levels of cheap (Québec), slightly less cheap (non-Québec Canadian), and expensive (international).
I was about to mention Quebec. But even Quebec makes no differentiation between Canadian non-Quebec citizens and non-Canadian domiciled Canadian citizens.
Also, it used to be a couple of years going to mcgill made you a Quebec resident.
The biggies (UBC/U of T/Waterloo) don’t care. And this is determined by province.
My main point, in response to @Data10, still stands. How could Canada track salaries of non-Canadian resident Canadians abroad?
The Cdn EEs I know pull far more than 80k CAD. Otherwise, who could bear to be away from Tim Hortons (yes for the nitpicky ones I know there are/were some here) which are ubiquitous there.
All of the macroeconomic factors can change. A person’s career is still in their hands. Both are true. I graduated into a recession, it impacted me. Yet I still became successful in multiple careers.
You navigate given what you have and what the economy is doing. My spouse has been in tech for 30 years, he often works for large companies when the economy is in a downturn and for himself when it isn’t. He isn’t alone in that. His peers who are now mid to late career do the same.
I’ve seen most people change careers due to economic changes and opportunities as well.
Can we make our way back from the subject of Canada to indoctrination? 
(again, kidding)
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Sorry! Just didn’t want people to think that Canadian rules applied. Unique structural reasons.
And back to the original question, a great many of my Canadian classmates in Canada encourage/guide their kids to engineering or CS because they perceive it to be a MUCH more lucrative path than any of the other seemingly higher salaried professions in Canada.
They don’t rely on the survey but know that there are greener pastures down south unless you place into a managerial/financial services role in Canada.
“There’s a LOT of money in art. And a lot of successful people. Many of the richest people are in the arts…”
That is all true but according to numerous career survey and outcome reports which show low average earnings in art related fields of study one can infer that there are a vastly greater number of people who are not successful and struggle to earn a living. The exceptional, successful people are just that- exceptions and outliers in a vast pool of numbers- highly visible survivors of an intense filtering system. Properly conducted career survey and outcome reports are the gold standard of assessing future career earning prospects. The numbers simply are what they are. Anecdotes are blips in a sea of data. None of this means the arts aren’t important or do not hold tremendous value or there will not be very successful people in the field. I am not anti-art. I just believe young people should be fully informed of the reality of the survey numbers.
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As we can see, good data is elusive. Can’t even rely on tax data!
“Thread drift” is my middle name. No worries at all. It’s my sarcasm. Absolutely clarify all you want.
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I’m not the type to base decisions on one-off, extreme anecdotes (Mick Jagger dropped out of his finance degree at LSE and look at him now; I think I’ll do that too!!).
But at the same time I don’t base decisions solely on data tables of typical outcomes. As others mention, I need to dig deeper into what that data is really reporting. And more importantly I need to relate that data to my, or in the context of this thread, my kid’s particular situation.
If I know 25 people with “impractical” degrees who have forged successful careers (and I do), and I know enough details about how they got there, I will give weight to anecdotes, provided they fit within the context of the situation being considered.
Conversely, even if the typical outcomes are very encouraging, if I know my kid is likely to be a middling engineer (let’s pick on them for a change), I’d keep in mind that their salary growth is likely to flatten, they’re likely to be passed over for promotions, and will be first on the chopping block should downsizing or outsourcing arise. (And outsourcing of bona fide engineering is happening; I have the anecdotes to prove it. 
). The numbers may look great in the surveys, but they may not apply to my kid.
So I think there is more nuance to both data and anecdotes than meets the eye.
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