We are in a strange time when software engineer salaries can even be comparable to those of doctors. Rest assured that sooner or later tech workers will be middle-class schlubs like pretty much every other type of engineer.
500k in costs before your first year of big earnings.
You said 30 years. I'm counting 2.
Disingenuous.
Missing interest - unless you really want to fuck yourself in the short term. 160k of tuition costs more like $300k with the standard payment play. Good luck if you have undergrad debt. Could easily add $500k more to your debt load.
> 80k x 4 = 320k lost wages.
Try a number closer to $400k. Also a good portion of MD's take a gap year for research either during med school or before residency. Potentially adds a year.
> 30k x 3 Delta wages.
3 years is for family medicine, most other specialities are 4 years - so add a year. Surgery is more like 8 years.
This wage delta is more on the order of $80k to $100k+ per year. I have friends who are closer to $150k+ per year wage gap compared to their MD spouses.
For my wife and I this number will be $400k.
$300k + $400k + $400k = $1.1m+ difference.
> You said 30 years. I'm counting 2.
You're counting two because you're only looking at salary and not the salary difference. I'm counting 15 at minimum on a pure salary income.
My wife is also working 80/hours week. I'm working 40. It will take into our 50's before my wife makes more on a per hour basis than I do. If I worked 80 hours per week, my wife would never catch up.
The salaries look nice when they're windowed to a single year. Career earnings, it's good but not that great compared to tech - especially when you consider the hours and stress.
* 4 years of med school - $0 income - $40k+ of tuition
* 3+ years of residency, minimum (4+ for most fields, even more for surgery) - $60k/year
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If my wife had gone straight into tech, we'd have been better off financially until our 50's. 30 years is a long, long time to break even.