It entirely depends on perspective. When I moved from the west coast to the east coast after completing a STEM PhD, my perspective changed completely. My girlf

It entirely depends on perspective. When I moved from the west coast to the east coast after completing a STEM PhD, my perspective changed completely. My girlfriend worked for a hedge fund, where her co-workers and bosses received bonuses that were multiples of my annual salary. I had a few friends who landed law jobs with lockstep compensation, where, within just a few years, they'd be make more than I could ever hope to make at my research lab. Another friend, an english major from a second-rate college, was hired to manage a team of programmers. She had no STEM skills but great people skills, and was eventually chosen to head up a new west coast division. She's compensated extremely, extremely well. We'd occasionally travel down to DC, where there are many, many people feeding off of government excess who make far more than STEM careers pay. That's what they don't tell you when picking a college career. You'll get paid relatively nicely out of college, sure, but you'd better not expect to make much more than that if you want to be a "STEM worker" no matter how hard you work or how good you are. The glass ceiling is very low compared to many other careers. Not only that, a $100,000 salary was, not very long ago, the key to a comfortable upper middle class life. The cost of living, housing, everything has gone up so fast in proportion to income that it just doesn't feel that way anymore. I cannot provide my family with the material comforts my parents enjoyed and provided me (and neither worked in STEM... or had college degrees!). Yes, there are exceptions at the moment if you're considered a "rockstar programmer". Still, that (and programming in general) represents a tiny slice of the overall STEM pie.