Dream Job or Money Pit?

Abstract

The path to becoming a lawyer, pilot, or a doctor is a very tough route no matter which profession one should choose. The purpose of this research paper is to determine if all the careers offer the same reward upon completion of education. Does one career earn significantly more money per dollar invested in education? The hope is that this paper will show these inconsistencies and increase awareness of the amount of debt students are piling on. The starting salary of a profession needs to be able to support the debt that must be accrued. Throughout this research paper, there will be a thorough analysis of three professions that will look at the time invested to obtain an education, the money invested, and the difficulty of obtaining the certification for that specific career path. This will show that each career is extremely difficult and thus should be rewarded as such. After this has been accomplished, I will discuss the starting salaries and compare this to the average debt obtained during education. It is my hope to show that some careers are financially much more viable than others, and this needs to be considered before entering the career field.