I can retrospectively look back at folks in my (non computer science) PhD cohort, and say that this bearish outlook is only true for folks who stay in science t

I can retrospectively look back at folks in my (non computer science) PhD cohort, and say that this bearish outlook is only true for folks who stay in science too long or pursue actual academic careers. The vast majority of folks I know flipped into more lucrative careers in industry... some of which require PhDs or Masters degrees. Furthermore, it really depends on your track. You can wind up in a lab studying something totally obscure or you can be in a lab with multi-million dollar funding and state-of-the-art equipment you can't find elsewhere. Sadly the most well funded scientific research right now is actually being bankrolled by techbro oligarchs for tax deduction purposes, even more so with the cuts to US funding.