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Comment by zamfi | Hacker News Reader

Well, the OP did say “the bulk of” — some people, like you, are surely carrying debt for non-lucrative degrees.

But the pipeline of lawyers, doctors, MBAs, etc. is quite a bit larger than self-pay philosophy PhDs, and a large fraction of those professional degrees are full-freight, $70k/year (plus living expenses!) of pure debt.

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Not all lawyers and doctors are the same. Consider public defenders. And physician compensation can vary dramatically depending on whether they're a general practitioner or specialist, rural or urban, etc.

Ironically, the ones we need the most are paid the least.

Of course, that's assuming students finish their degrees and get jobs. Plenty of people drop out of school, and they don't get refunds! Law students fail to pass the bar, etc.

Yes, and indeed, this is exactly the argument used by the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, in which public defenders / nonprofit lawyers / rural nonprofit doctors’ loans are written forgiven after 10 years of public service so they are not saddled with a lifetime of debt they can’t pay off due to choosing careers in public service. You’re in a supposedly “lucrative” career with a high debt load, but choosing not to pursue the typical high-income pathway.

That program has many gotchas, but at least this reflects a recognition that debt creates incentives that society may not want.

For Law, it's not just about not passing the bar. It's about getting into a top 10 law school and getting a top clerkship. And then getting into a top firm. Yeah, some people don't end up on that train and do OK but it's probably not a great ROI even if they pass the checkmarks.

> Ironically, the ones we need the most are paid the least.

That isn’t ironic at all. If they were paid more, we wouldn’t have a shortage.

It’s an implication of a system that pays commensurate to what one contributes to the economy rather than commensurate to what one contributes to society.

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