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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP. not medical. possibly work at research institute.[/quote]

Biology degrees are generally low paying for this type of work.  Hopefully you and child understand all this.[/quote]

OMG.  Everything except engineering is deemed low paying on this site.[/quote]

No.  However, biology (as well as chemistry) are typically know for being low paying jobs, especially since with only a BA/BS you can only do the grunt work in someone's lab.  To do any really interesting work (ie why they major in bio or chem) you need a PHD (maybe a MS), so you spend 4 years in undergrad getting a difficult stem degree and the only job you can find using the degree pays you $35-40K with long hours doing "not so exciting work".  To get paid more, you need to get your PHD so 5-8 years (depending upon the research).  And even then, if not in big Pharma, you might only make $75K, but you are now 28-30 yo, have been living on $30K/year while in the PHD program, have 10+ years of advanced education and you can only make $70-75K.

So do it if you truly love it, but go in knowing you have 8-10years of education to be able to be a research scientist in Bio or Chem, and the path is low paying, long hours and a lot of grunt work/boring work along the way.  Great if that's what you want to really do, but go into it understanding the implications.

And yeah if my kid gets a PHD I would hope they could make more than $70K/year.  My average college student lives in a MCOL area and started first job at 22 making $60K, and after 2 years is making 70K+.  In 6-7 years, they will be making over $100K easily, not making $70K and just "starting out in life interms of saving for a house, retirement, etc".  But they did a finance degree (not directly using the finance degree) and only spent 4 years in undergrad (and I'd argue the finance degree was easier courses than a chemistry or biology degree).    [/quote]

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