To some extent, but as someone who made that transition from 25-40K as a grad student/post-doc to even a modest tech salary in those areas (e.g., 100K), the dif

To some extent, but as someone who made that transition from 25-40K as a grad student/post-doc to even a modest tech salary in those areas (e.g., 100K), the difference is more than compensated for with rent/mortgages being ~10-20K more expensive. Plus, more and more data teams are now allowing remote work (though, let's see how long that lasts post-2020).