yep. You get paid higher if: - you go straight out of undergrad to industry - you only do a masters - you "drop out" after a masters - you are sponsored by

yep. You get paid higher if: - you go straight out of undergrad to industry - you only do a masters - you "drop out" after a masters - you are sponsored by industry to take a 5-6 year "sabbatical" to get a PhD (which is status-driven, but still tied to "demand", as you say). - you go to industry without doing a postdoc If you are in the PhD program to get into academia, it is very much a status-driven, low-paid pursuit (I got paid 26k/yr for ~80h/wk average 6 years, probably generally was working 100-days-straight) and all of the problems in the article apply (including tendency to groupthink in the service of promotion, attracting status-seeking; stupid 20-something men). As a grad student, the undergrad "dishwasher" lab tech was getting paid more than I was (raw; not dividing by hours). Even for postdocs the misery is true. I gave myself a pay raise and hours reduction when I quit being a postdoc and started driving for lyft full-time ~50h/wk on the road, but carve out about 10-ish for like logging off to do social things with friends because I was "in the city anyways".