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Very relevant article which I haven't finished:

http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/fall2010/Rosenbaum.pdf

Added: the average salary for someone with a professional degree is $102,200.

Great! That's solidly upper middle class!

But...let's talk about the cost of paying off your student loans.

Average debt among med school graduates is $167,000. Paying it off over 30 years means at 7.5% means you'll pay ~$420,000 total to go to med school. Then there are all those lost earnings. They sure do add up (not counting a BA, which you probably also owe money on, there are 4 years of med school, a year as a serf (internship) and then 3 to 5 years as an underpaid resident (starting salary in the 40s). Then you get to pay for your malpractice insurance!

If you bring the debt up to $200,000 to include BA debt, you'll end up paying $500,000 for that education that was your ticket to the upper middle class.

But at least doctors can get jobs. The same is not necessarily true for law school grads.

It's nice to start life as a debt serf.

Thank you for sharing this.

This article provides a much needed counter-point in discussing alternative definitions of success and paths to those successes, exposing college myths and realities, and outlining the impacts of achievement/performance while in college and the chosen major upon future earnings. In a balanced presentation, this article places many issues on the table for further examination, including factors of job satisfaction which are not financial in nature.

This article was on point in many respects, however some may find the parallel to condom usage to be a tangent, sufficiently off-topic that the overall article may have benefitted by its omission, focusing solely on post-secondary educational pursuits and omitting the other PSA.

Unfortunately as these kids inherit the burgeoning national debt to be paid off with their income taxes, they and their children may remain debt serfs throughout the lifespan.