[devilsdounut]

Not sure 50k-90k for PhDs from top programs is really the case anymore. Companies hiring for data-science type jobs have always been pulling from the pool of quantitative PhDs, and as a result the pharma/genomics companies have been forced to raise salaries. Pure bench scientists would potentially have that kind of range, but anything quantitative is going to be much higher. This being said, there is a huge gap between those purely experimental scientists and the quantitative ones who have many non-science options.

[adenadel]

I think that the comparison is towards the alternative path in academia. For example, I completed a master's degree and got an internship doing bioinformatics as part of the degree. My pay during the internship was more than one of my instructors (who had a PhD in CS and was a postdoc in a biology lab doing genomic research).

[cryoshon]

Just going off of Novartis as a reference. I'd certainly agree with what you said regarding quantitative vs experimental scientist salaries, though.