I’m confused, first job out of undergrad vs first job out of a PhD is going to have a massive salary difference in any field and from any two decent schools. What am I missing?
In many countries PhDs are only valuable in academia and industrial research institutes, but your salary is capped quite a bit long term.
In Asia a new grad fresh out of college is seen as more employable than a new PhD grad by most companies and salary differences would be minimal. I wouldn't recommend doing a PhD if you're out for a high salary there.
On the other hand in some European countries just having any PhD degree will open up career paths and salaries unavailable to non PhDs regardless of actual skills.
I know as I started work at the worlds leading Research association for hydrodynamics and left for the commercial world as the pay was so bad.
You will not easily be reaching upper management without a PhD.
I can’t think of any C levels or one level below that aren’t credentialed as such.
>> 10x
In the terms of your first comment, the suggestion is that fresh bachelors trying to work in humanities don't get jobs. MIT was not mentioned.
A PhD in English lit or whatever basically only makes sense if you want to teach and that's not a great track these days.