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PharmHopefulLonghorn2015

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My friend linked me to this article, which shows what happens when y'all decide to buy beautiful things instead of preserving your credit score and protecting your net worth. Lesson should go without saying: Please pay off your student debts within 5 years, max =). This really applies to both medical and pharmacy school, but should really be accentuated in a pharmacy market which is nowhere near as stable as the medical market.

http://www.thepharmacistblog.com/2015/03/24/is-pharmacy-school-worth-it/

I hope this helps current undergraduate, pharmacy or other students!
 
Was this article written by @stoichiometrist 😉.

The points made in this article are good. Paying your debts off early is always sound advice (unless you're going to a school like USC and plan to be a type b pharmD) The numbers presented are... questionable.
 
way too many naive students do not realize financial burden that they are going to face after graduate. That's why i don't understand whoever going to school over $40k/year.
 
Was this article written by @stoichiometrist 😉.

The points made in this article are good. Paying your debts off early is always sound advice (unless you're going to a school like USC and plan to be a type b pharmD) The numbers presented are... questionable.

lol the blog does seem to scream that it's someone from SDN lol.

the numbers aren't really questionable. the reason is because time is on the tech's side. literally a 10 year headstart in saving and compounding. see this...http://www.bestmedicaldegrees.com/salary-of-doctors/

it's a common topic and one students really need to think about, that it's not all how it seems. it's a main reason why we discourage students from taking huge loans for a salary that will likely not be high enough.not just pharmacy but pharmacy has a lot of other problems happening now and will worsen in the future besides the cost-benefit.

however the beef i have with the post is that it's assuming 6% savings for both. but let's assume similar cost of living for both the tech and the pharmacist. the pharmacist technically can then save a larger percent of their income or have more $$ on hand for kids. Maybe a pharmacist can save 10 even 20% if they live with parents or have same lifestyle as a tech. If both the tech and pharmacist spend same amount per year, then pharmacist can beat tech. If they each invest 6% and spend the rest, tech wins that makes perfect sense.

in reality well no one knows. everyone's different. but i'd estimate that most of you guys want to be pharmacists so you can make that money and spend that money and not be financially savvy enough to save and invest. a lot of MD's have no self control on spending or budgeting, i'll assume and know of many pharmacists who are the same. you don't want to be a pharmacist to live the same lifestyle as a tech and have 20K for spending. no most i daresay want nice house, nice cars, 2-3 kids, lotta vacations, whole foods, etc etc. in the end that'll set you back. not to say that the tech won't spend either, the tech probably isn't saving 6% because they're not as educated, more impulsive didn't go to college, no fiscal or little discipline at all, etc.

it's not just how much you make but how much you spend. you make $200K and spend $200K and you will be poorer than someone making $20K and spending $10K. of course you can change habits and easily save a lot if you make more but time isn't on your side. if you look past year 30 you can kind of see that the pharmacist will start to match and catch up to the tech, of course you will probably be laid off by 50 anyway but for prepharmacy sake let's be mindlessly optimistic anyway!

in the long run i think the pharmacist should be even or a little more than the tech assuming very similar lifestyles and actual average pharmacy tuition. the writer used U Wash, most prepharmers in SDN go to schools 2-4X as much so it's actually worse.
 
Was this article written by @stoichiometrist 😉.

The points made in this article are good. Paying your debts off early is always sound advice (unless you're going to a school like USC and plan to be a type b pharmD) The numbers presented are... questionable.

Or I somehow managed to drill it into their heads (at least the computer programming part) after posting about it ad nauseum. :beat: I would like to add though, that it's far easier to get a job as a computer programmer than as a pharmacist due to growth in the field. You also get better benefits, stock options, amenities, etc. and do not have to deal with yelling patients in retail where 70% of the pharmacist jobs are.

Entering students face the triple threat of rising tuition and debt, poor job prospects, and soon lower salaries. It might still be okay for some who goes to an inexpensive state school and are is to move to the middle of nowhere, but soon even rural areas are likely to be saturated with over 3 times more pharmacists entering the job market than projected job creation.
 
As a rough guess, I would estimate the very same people who attend diploma mill pharmacy school (possibly half of today's pharmacy students) are the same people who will have trouble sticking to the budget as proposed by the author. These same people will not hesitate to have numerous kids while renting out an expensive condo in the city after graduation if they can find a full time gig in the proposed Hunger Games battle of 2020 and beyond. That $60,000 take home number might be a good estimate for those that are financially smarter.
 
That's a rather low estimate for the salary isn't it? Even with the much more saturated market in academia, you can get around $90K-$110K as a PhD or postdoc if you're lucky enough to land a job in industry since it's based on your qualifications. After all, it would be hard to trust a pharmacist if they're only paid as much as a custodian.
 
That's a rather low estimate for the salary isn't it? Even with the much more saturated market in academia, you can get around $90K-$110K as a PhD or postdoc if you're lucky enough to land a job in industry since it's based on your qualifications. After all, it would be hard to trust a pharmacist if they're only paid as much as a custodian.

PhD or post doc is even worse than pharmacy. I think that's been emphasized multiple times already on SDN.

It's take home pay for the pharmacist, meaning after taxes, have you worked before? Maybe you're not familiar with taxes or made enough to be taxed a lot but 60K is around the average take home. It's probably a bit low, maybe the author is accounting for salary stagnation or decreases.maybe no 401K contribution either, so it's probably on the lower side.

That article had $5000 monthly loan payments, that's pretty high to me. Considering gross pay is what...$9000/month, after tax is like 6750 and then $5000 loans means you have to live off $20K/yr. Give me a break, no prepharm would accept 20K/yr not including rent/housing, well not the misguided ones. Your cost of living could help out though depending on the area. we haven't talked about food, utlities, car(s), kids (30-60K) after tax dollars for 2, partner/spouse (depending who you marry), mortgage...

the tech salary is a bit high imo, they did say hospital and yeah that's about right but hospital tech jobs aren't everywhere either. better than pharmacist though. for retail tech it's much lower but depends on the company

article isn't just about pharmacist vs pharmacy tech but is college really worth it? you could swap the job titles for other jobs and come to the same conclusion. being in a deep hole you have more to climb out of and it's not always worth it.
 
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That's a rather low estimate for the salary isn't it? Even with the much more saturated market in academia, you can get around $90K-$110K as a PhD or postdoc if you're lucky enough to land a job in industry since it's based on your qualifications. After all, it would be hard to trust a pharmacist if they're only paid as much as a custodian.

That's what I thought too, but the majority of folks will be dispensing for a big chain as a floater to start, for the first year or possibly several. Most of these floaters are not getting 40 hours, maybe 30-35. Wages at roughly $50/hour, and factor in taxes and etc. and $60K is not really a bad estimation at all. Perhaps different for PIC's and RxM's. But for staff, not bad ballpark estimation
 
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