[stale2002]

The solution is less people becoming PHDs.

Unions, and the like, just move around the real problem, which is that we have too many people in academia, and that those people should move to industry.

[lsh123]

Bingo! It’s free country — you don’t like to be in academia, go somewhere else!

It is also a free market — you get paid how much you are worth.

Disclaimer: dropped out of PhD program many many years ago for this and other reasons. Don’t regret it for a second.

[scarecrowbob]

I don't regret leaving either.

I do wish that 24-year-old me had either enough wisdom (or perhaps, say, an ethical advisor) to skip getting into massive debt.

I don't agree that folks get paid what they are worth, but that's probably a deeper disagreement than warrants discussion on this forum.

[mpcomplete]

Going in to academia is always on my mind because I would love to be on the cutting edge of research, but I can never justify leaving my job to work twice as hard and get paid 4x less.

It's a shame that you need to be rich to continue your education past a point, but it just doesn't make sense to keep going.

[HarryHirsch]

Industry left to China: https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i41/Chinese-chemistry-PhD-gr...

The only thing that the US is producing these days is student debt.