Is Biology a useless degree without the medical field?

Right out of college, many students have roommates. Most students dont start buying a house till they have paid their loans, typically 10 years after graduation.
Thy dont statically remain at entry level pay
Typically, 5 years out, either their salary has improved or they move on.

Thanks @ucbalumnus : I didn’t realize that there literally was over a hundred thousand biology graduates a year ( and roughly 17000 students enrolled in DO or Med School… So, about 90,000 looking for a job with similar qualifications.)

I know quite a few people who got their undergraduate degrees in Biology (20 years out of undergrad) and almost all have supplemented that degree with more training or degrees (Hospital Administration, nursing, Physician Assistants, Nursing Assistants, grad degrees in biology disciplines, and grad degrees in education that teach). So I don’t know many who did not get more education after receiving a Biology degree, but there are a few that didn’t. One went into Pharmaceutical sales and makes pretty good money (6 figures looking at lifestyle), another has worked in labs their entire career (not making big money but seems pretty happy), and another teaches (1st year teacher with bachelors makes about 41K in my area and she would be making low to mid 60K at the 20 year mark of her career, but has been able to spend a lot of time with her kids growing up along with having a great retirement package set up). The OPs header question spoke of the medical field in general and the question in the thread spoke of being a doctor specifically. There are so many jobs in the medical field along with other fields to look at that would bring a comfortable living, but they may just need more education just like getting a MD would.

@MYOS1634:
If an accounting grad makes $43K right out of college and a biology grad makes $33K, then which is going to be able to pay off that loan faster, save up for a down payment faster, save up money for an advanced degree faster, start saving up for retirement sooner or just have more discretionary income and a better lifestyle?

Yes, I had pointed out (#45) that there are ~60,000 biology grads and a similar number in other biology-related fields.

@ChangeTheGame:
The BS Biology is useless for getting a good job in the medical field. Almost all would need to get an advanced degree or a vocational, AA degree w/certifications.

Some will say that “sales is sales” implying that a good salesman can sell anything, maybe even pharmaceuticals, so your $100,000 salesman with a biology degree isn’t a helpful data point.

Then we have teaching, which everyone has already thought of anyway, which is not known to be very lucrative, doesn’t need a biology degree specifically and probably requires some education beyond a bachelor’s.

And then we have the ‘lab jobs,’ which don’t make the big money, no matter how long or diligently you toil at them.

Now is the biology degree useless outside the fields mentioned above? About the best we can say is that it doesn’t seem to help any more than any other bachelor’s level degree, yet it seems to fare much worse than some others.

@DTBTSE I am not in any “camp” on the worth of a Biology degree, but was just stating what I have seen which is about 90% of my Biology degree friend group got some sort of advanced degree. My own mentor told me a long time ago (late 90’s) that all college degrees besides a few (Engineering, Accounting/Finance/Business Administration, and Computer Science) would be more like high school degrees from 50 years ago, and that most to all other majors would need advanced degrees to have the same earning potential and match what a BA or BS degree could do when he came out of college in the mid 70’s. I am sure that there are other high paying degrees out there, but I agree that most BA and BS degrees are losing the battle against inflationary pressures.

@ChangeTheGame:
I was mostly agreeing with your observations, just elaborating a little on their implications.

This interactive graph is interesting…
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/05/09/310114739/whats-your-major-four-decades-of-college-degrees-in-1-graph

For whatever reason, there was a notable increase in the number of business graduates in the late 70s, both by percentage of grads and in sheer numbers. My theory is that business grads prefer to hire other business grads and tend to look at other grads as either trained for work (computer sci, engineering) or not trained (almost all other majors.)

The only way up for most others is either to aim for professional school or to get trained and licensed in a trade or guild, and hope that your trade doesn’t get outsourced, off-shored or automated (by the business grads?)

As an alternative, maybe most college students should be majoring in business and minoring in the other subjects.

@MYOS1634:
" It depends, but generally not. Those are two very different paths.
For example, unless an Accounting major double majored in History, English, or Philosophy, they’d be highly unlikely to have the courses and internships for a professional writing job. "

Accountant writes book:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/19/first-novel-witches-sally-green-publishers-snap-up

My biology major daughter was offered a job doing some type of biology research editing. She turned it down… but it was a job… in biology. The salary wasn’t high but it was enough to live in an east coast city with a roommate.

I do agree that most biology majors continue with their schooling.