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jcoq | 3 years ago

Nursing only requires a 2 year degree in the US and hardly any ongoing training apart from paid training provided by the hospital. There might be some additional certifications for certain fields, but that's it.

Most nurses are paid hourly, so the "long hours" is a moot point.

My nurse friends all make around 100,000 per year after overtime, which they're eager to get. The average full time salary without overtime is ~80,000.

For a 2 year degree, this is very decent money in most states and I think we'd struggle to name a career with such low education requirements and high salary.

I really appreciate the work of medical professionals and don't want to belittle their work. But I think nursing does standout as a counterexample to the point you're making.

Neither of your links mention nursing.

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tchaffee|3 years ago

> Nursing only requires a 2 year degree

It also requires passing a licensing test. Passing the licensing test requires self-study. You need to include this time in the training requirements for the profession.

Most jobs do not require a licensing test. So when comparing you need to find similar jobs with 2 year degree + licensing requirements.

> The average full time salary without overtime is ~80,000.

That's exaggerated. The median pay is $77,600. Or a better measure is the $37.31 per hour. That is not a high hourly rate by any measure. [1]

> I think we'd struggle to name a career with such low education requirements and high salary.

No we wouldn't. Large numbers of programmers don't even have a degree - it's not required for sure - and earn way more than nurses. Licensing is not required. Mandatory overtime is not rampant. Programming being a male dominated field.

> Most nurses are paid hourly, so the "long hours" is a moot point.

It's not moot at all. In many cases it is a job requirement, not optional. NY for example only passed a law in 2009 making mandatory overtime illegal for nurses. It was so rampant that states have passed laws about it. That makes the career far harder than most jobs where overtime is often optional. And to date, only 18 states have laws against mandatory overtime for nurses.

> Neither of your links mention nursing.

That's wrong. The 1st link shows a chart with a comparison of careers with similar training and the chart shows nursing in that comparison.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/registered-nurses.htm#tab...

rendang|3 years ago

The cognitive ability required to be an RN is nowhere near that required for programming, degree or no.

jcoq|3 years ago

Apologies for misrepresenting your source.

I think there are salary differences across careers for a variety of complex market reasons. If I had understood the degree to which money would dictate the security of my family, I'd have spent my years as a lowly paid graduate student and post-doc becoming a surgeon or working in finance instead of becoming a mathematician. My bay area salary is much better than my tenure track salary but still a fraction of what I could actually be making. Nurses, too, are free to retrain.

I will concede that this issue is not personally important to me.

lumb63|3 years ago

“Not a high hourly rate”. From OP’s link: Registered nurse: $77,600 Total, all occupations: $45,760

You have to be in a bubble to think this isn’t good pay.