> PhDs are a classic example: if you get a PhD and stay in Academia, your salary is tiny relative to industry. But there is a promise of status ... Which means

> PhDs are a classic example: if you get a PhD and stay in Academia, your salary is tiny relative to industry. But there is a promise of status ... Which means there is an incentive ... to convince people that status is worth the lower salaries. This is likely a country-dependent thing... I'm in academia and I have never encountered anyone who was clearly doing it for status. Worse: there is a strong concept of egalitarianism in my experience. So not only do I not know of folks who "do" academia for the status, but you don't really have that much compared to others anyway. Again: this is likely country-dependent (as well as field-dependent and, perhaps, institute-dependent). And I'm likely at least a bit blind to some of what's happening since I personally don't attach much value to academic status. So your mileage may vary.