They know...

[VictorOfHungerGames]

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So according to Thomas Menighan, APhA CEO, they know how jacked up pharmacy is right now. He claims that its just too hard to fix it lol yeah probably because of all the money youre taking from big corporations.

He also claims its not bc there are too many schools. Lol wtf. Man, just stop.

He basically recognizes there is a problem but it aint gonna be fixed any time soon because its too hard of a problem.... lol awesome. Speaking like a true politician. Present a problem with no actual solution and just spin that bad boy and just talk about it over and over until we are all tired of hearing and die of old age and do it again with new set of people...

 

[Pharmcats71]

My God. They are still beating the provider status dead horse when they have made zero headway on 20 years. This is the only weapon Dean's have against the saturation. You know they are telling prepharms not to worry about the job market because of provider status.

 

[VA77]

I wonder if Trump will get Lucinda Maine as next press secretary. She would be perfect and better than anyone else he has had.

 

[VA77]

I will give him credit. He is one of the few executives that have openly spoken to a number of problems. He isn't just another one with his head in the sand.

 

[VictorOfHungerGames]

I will give him credit. He is one of the few executives that have openly spoken to a number of problems. He isn't just another one with his head in the sand.

Well the problem may be worse since now theyre openly admitting the issue yet completely ignoring the most obvious solution... this may not be a good career move for him.

 

[RxPreceptor]

I wonder if Trump will get Lucinda Maine as next press secretary. She would be perfect and better than anyone else he has had.

My God, wish they would bring back Sean Spicer...C-span has never been so entertaining/Sean Spicer press conferences were my source of entertainment.
#Can't Ice the Spice

 

[VictorOfHungerGames]

My God, wish they would bring back Sean Spicer...C-span has never been so entertaining/Sean Spicer press conferences were my source of entertainment.
#Can't Ice the Spice
View attachment 267773

Are you kidding me?! Lol Sarah Sanders has been by far the best the history has ever seen. She never answers any questions yet the press keeps on having questions for her lol

 

[zelman]

Well the problem may be worse since now theyre openly admitting the issue yet completely ignoring the most obvious solution... this may not be a good career move for him.

What is that solution? Closing schools or unionization or something else?

 

[VictorOfHungerGames]

What is that solution? Closing schools or unionization or something else?

Stop opening new schools would be one, along with closing schools if possible. Get rid of PBMs or at least make laws to stop them from sucking the life out of health care. Make it illegal for pharmaceutical companies to own insurance companies. Thats just straight up conflict of interest.

They all know this but they dont do anything about it. Or they didnt stop any of these things from happening in the first place. Im sure if we look at their bank records, well have a good idea as to why pharmacy is so jacked up.

 

[BenJammin]

I have zero respect for Tom Menighan

 

[spacecowgirl]

My friend in the SE said her chain isn't taking interns anymore. That seems like a positive change.

 

[Rouelle]

My friend in the SE said her chain isn't taking interns anymore. That seems like a positive change.

APPE/IPPE interns or paid interns? Or both?

 

[PikminOC]

My God. They are still beating the provider status dead horse when they have made zero headway on 20 years. This is the only weapon Dean's have against the saturation. You know they are telling prepharms not to worry about the job market because of provider status.

Just like medical school and residency don't teach about malpractice and druggie patients...

 

[spacecowgirl]

APPE/IPPE interns or paid interns? Or both?

Paid. Getting retail pharmacies to turn away free labor (+ stipend?) will be harder.

 

[Rouelle]

Paid. Getting retail pharmacies to turn away free labor (+ stipend?) will be harder.

But arguably more effective. If schools can’t arrange APPE rotations, then that’s a big deal.

 

[TerryTerry]

They not just know it, they also planned it.

 

[VA77]

Stop taking P4s and if you do increase the fees until students or schools finally understand.

 

[Argentium]

Stop opening new schools would be one, along with closing schools if possible. Get rid of PBMs or at least make laws to stop them from sucking the life out of health care. Make it illegal for pharmaceutical companies to own insurance companies. Thats just straight up conflict of interest.

They all know this but they dont do anything about it. Or they didnt stop any of these things from happening in the first place. Im sure if we look at their bank records, well have a good idea as to why pharmacy is so jacked up.

Honestly his response isn't bad - as someone said, at least he is addressing the elephant in the room.

At the end of the day, APhA is a toothless organization - (a) APhA doesn't have direct influence over accreditation and (b) APhA doesn't write or enforce any laws to my knowledge. All it can do is lobby and my guess is that its budget isn't that great and pharmacists in general aren't the greatest advocates for their own profession so not like APhA can call on its members to strike the way some other lobbying groups can.

Also pharmaceutical companies don't own PBM's???

 

[farm4real]

Looking forward to seeing the July consensus statement... if they do not address the glut of pharmacy schools admitting any f@&$**** with a 2.0 Gpa we will know they need to be fired!

 

[mentos]

What is that solution? Closing schools or unionization or something else?

Closing all schools would be a start. Do not give out any new PharmDs for at least 10 years. There is a surplus of pharmacists right now to fill all open positions for that long. Then they can start accepting students prn.

 

[PharFromNormal]

Tom has already announced he is retiring next year. Who gets SDN’s vote for successor? There’s so many good
options, I vote unchained.

 

[beautifulrobot]

The solution is:
1) if you arent competitive enough to find work in a saturated city, move to a rural area
2) if you arent willing/able to move, cut your loses and retrain for a different job

I am also a proponent of reforming the way federal student loans are handled, like putting an annual cap on how many of each type of degree the government funds, but that's something I can't directly control. I don't think it's ethical to close down schools just for the sake of recreating a pharmacist shortage, but i also dont think its ethical for the unchecked flow of unlimited loan money to continue. Cut the irrational cash flow and the problem will solve itself.

 

[Pharmacy is a Scam]

At the end of the day, APhA is a toothless organization - (a) APhA doesn't have direct influence over accreditation and (b) APhA doesn't write or enforce any laws to my knowledge. All it can do is lobby and my guess is that its budget isn't that great and pharmacists in general aren't the greatest advocates for their own profession so not like APhA can call on its members to strike the way some other lobbying groups can.

The “lobbying budget” isn’t that great because the board is probably fighting harder to defend their own salaries than advocating for the profession.

If you take a look at the 2018 APhA Annual report, you’ll notice that of the ~$35M in budget that APhA had, $22M of that (63%) was spent on salaries and paying for speakers. This means that less than $13M was invested in actual lobbying — and when you subtract fixed costs then that number drops to less than $8M.

Point is, if we gave APhA their best case scenario, then about 1 in every 3 dollars invested into their organization actually goes towards lobbying efforts. The other two dollars goes towards paying people. It’s no wonder they can’t anything done.

 

[BenJammin]

I am also a proponent of reforming the way federal student loans are handled, like putting an annual cap on how many of each type of degree the government funds, but that's something I can't directly control. I don't think it's ethical to close down schools just for the sake of recreating a pharmacist shortage, but i also dont think its ethical for the unchecked flow of unlimited loan money to continue. Cut the irrational cash flow and the problem will solve itself.

I've been a huge fan of the prior auth concept coming to student loans. Say you want to be an elementary education teacher. We'll loan you money to attend Oklahoma State, UT-El Paso, New Mexico State, etc. We will not loan you money to attend Baylor, Rice, USC, or Ohio State. If you want to attend Baylor then you'll need to major in chemistry. If you want to attend USC you'll need to major in film or attend the medical school.

Just throwing out random schools as an example.

 

[VictorOfHungerGames]

The solution is:
1) if you arent competitive enough to find work in a saturated city, move to a rural area
2) if you arent willing/able to move, cut your loses and retrain for a different job

I am also a proponent of reforming the way federal student loans are handled, like putting an annual cap on how many of each type of degree the government funds, but that's something I can't directly control. I don't think it's ethical to close down schools just for the sake of recreating a pharmacist shortage, but i also dont think its ethical for the unchecked flow of unlimited loan money to continue. Cut the irrational cash flow and the problem will solve itself.

Those two arent solutions. Thats whats actually happening right now because the current problem. Due to saturation we cant find jobs. Because we can find jobs we move out of city. Now, who wants to be forced out of their home? If you have to tell people to suck it up and gtfo, how is that a solution?

We need to get rid of the problem which is saturation while dumping more students in the pot.

 

[beautifulrobot]

Those two arent solutions. Thats whats actually happening right now because the current problem. Due to saturation we cant find jobs. Because we can find jobs we move out of city. Now, who wants to be forced out of their home? If you have to tell people to suck it up and gtfo, how is that a solution?

We need to get rid of the problem which is saturation while dumping more students in the pot.

No one is forcing you out of your home. You have the choice to:
1) Retrain for another job if you don't want to move to where there are pharmacist jobs.
2) Find a new home where there are pharmacist jobs.
3) Find ways to beat the competition for pharmacist jobs where you currently live.

You are blaming saturation for your unwillingness to adapt to change. The pharmacist shortage was a problem for corporations that had to pay more to attract pharmacists, and for patients who needed access to affordable pharmacy services. So what did corporations do? They dumped money into expanding existing pharmacy schools and opening new pharmacy schools. Their investments paid off, and both corporations and, presumably, patients/consumers benefit from pharmacist saturation. Pharmacist saturation is not a problem for the majority of society. From the perspective of the companies that hire pharmacists and the consumers that utilize pharmacist services, saturation is a solution.

Closing down schools for the sole purpose of increasing barriers of entry to the profession so that there is less competition for pharmacist jobs is an unrealistic and unethical solution (some might even say it's un-American - why do you hate 'merica so much?).

Potential solutions that may work and that aren't anti-business or anti-liberty include:
- Ensure pre-pharmers are fully informed of the reality of the pharmacist job market
- Petition the government to limit the amount of cheap federal loans students can take (e.g., remove unnecessary government incentives to enter a profession that is no longer experiencing a shortage)
- Support government programs and non-profits that are focused on retraining unemployed people for other jobs
- Encourage pharmacists to move to rural areas where there is still a pharmacist shortage

If the only solutions we focus are on the ones that benefit us personally at the expense of everyone else, we won't get very far.

 

[Argentium]

The “lobbying budget” isn’t that great because the board is probably fighting harder to defend their own salaries than advocating for the profession.

If you take a look at the 2018 APhA Annual report, you’ll notice that of the ~$35M in budget that APhA had, $22M of that (63%) was spent on salaries and paying for speakers. This means that less than $13M was invested in actual lobbying — and when you subtract fixed costs then that number drops to less than $8M.

Point is, if we gave APhA their best case scenario, then about 1 in every 3 dollars invested into their organization actually goes towards lobbying efforts. The other two dollars goes towards paying people. It’s no wonder they can’t anything done.

Not totally abnormal, though the bigger problem is that the APhA budget is $35M and the the AMA budget is 10x the size. Haven't looked at some of the other big organizations like nursing, dentistry, etc. but I can only imagine .. when it comes down to it, pharmacists are terrible at advocating for their profession. Though even with all the resources they have, the nurses/physicians/dentists are getting screwed too (maybe less than us but still)

Of the $300 in expenses for the AMA, approx. $200 is compensation for FT employees (Page 13 below)

https://www.ama-assn.org/system/files/2019-05/2018-ama-annual-report.pdf

 

[Pharmacy is a Scam]

Not totally abnormal, though the bigger problem is that the APhA budget is $35M and the the AMA budget is 10x the size. Haven't looked at some of the other big organizations like nursing, dentistry, etc. but I can only imagine .. when it comes down to it, pharmacists are terrible at advocating for their profession. Though even with all the resources they have, the nurses/physicians/dentists are getting screwed too (maybe less than us but still)

Of the $300 in expenses for the AMA, approx. $200 is compensation for FT employees (Page 13 below)

https://www.ama-assn.org/system/files/2019-05/2018-ama-annual-report.pdf

Right. Looking at their revenue streams, the majority of APhA’s money comes from conferences, membership and board certifications which are all scams, so how do you generate more revenue? You hike the prices on these products.

Who then benefits the most from pharmacist saturation besides the corporate retail chains? Answer: APhA, because as everyone participates in the hunger games they will seek additional certifications to “stand out” from the rest of the group and will be willing to pay several hundreds if not thousands of dollars out of desperation with the promise that “this APhA certificate/credential is the gold standard in recognizing competencies in _____________.” When interest in conferences and certifications balloons like this, the APhA board I bet is licking their chops at the raises they will be getting as these revenue streams scale to size.

 

[VictorOfHungerGames]

No one is forcing you out of your home. You have the choice to:
1) Retrain for another job if you don't want to move to where there are pharmacist jobs.
2) Find a new home where there are pharmacist jobs.
3) Find ways to beat the competition for pharmacist jobs where you currently live.

You are blaming saturation for your unwillingness to adapt to change. The pharmacist shortage was a problem for corporations that had to pay more to attract pharmacists, and for patients who needed access to affordable pharmacy services. So what did corporations do? They dumped money into expanding existing pharmacy schools and opening new pharmacy schools. Their investments paid off, and both corporations and, presumably, patients/consumers benefit from pharmacist saturation. Pharmacist saturation is not a problem for the majority of society. From the perspective of the companies that hire pharmacists and the consumers that utilize pharmacist services, saturation is a solution.

Closing down schools for the sole purpose of increasing barriers of entry to the profession so that there is less competition for pharmacist jobs is an unrealistic and unethical solution (some might even say it's un-American - why do you hate 'merica so much?).

Potential solutions that may work and that aren't anti-business or anti-liberty include:
- Ensure pre-pharmers are fully informed of the reality of the pharmacist job market
- Petition the government to limit the amount of cheap federal loans students can take (e.g., remove unnecessary government incentives to enter a profession that is no longer experiencing a shortage)
- Support government programs and non-profits that are focused on retraining unemployed people for other jobs
- Encourage pharmacists to move to rural areas where there is still a pharmacist shortage

If the only solutions we focus are on the ones that benefit us personally at the expense of everyone else, we won't get very far.

Yeah... no im not gonna agree with anything you just said. It does become a problem for everyone when they open up more schools just to profit and job market doesnt expand. Why? Bc they can keep cutting hours, meaning theyll still hire the same amount of pharmacists or less, with more scripts to fill while there are more students being produced just for corporations to profit. Pharmacist work environment gets ****tier by the day, putting more and more patients at risk. Youre wanting us to just follow this suicidal path of least resistance. And... thats gonna be a no for me. I am actually gonna start attending pharmacy state board meetings and conferences and be more active in ****ing on ideas such as what you presented above.

 

[beautifulrobot]

Again, youre missing the point. I dont want to fight the saturation. I want the saturation to disappear. Keeping the saturation up and finding a way to go around it isnt really solving the problem. We have to fix things so that saturation doesn't exist.

I understand you want saturation to disappear. Of course you want less competition for jobs and better job security. The imbalance in supply and demand of pharmacists will eventually correct itself, just not as soon as you want it to. My point is how are you going to come to terms with that reality and start focusing on things that you can actually control?

Proposing to fix things by shutting down schools isn't a sensible solution. There is no practical way for you as an individual, or even an organized group of people, to legally shut down a bunch of pharmacy schools. Not to mention that shutting down schools and trying to recreate a pharmacist shortage introduces a whole slew of problems for the rest of society, so it's not a viable solution. It is simply a fantasy.

 

[BidingMyTime]

Here's the thing, HungerGameVictor, nobody is being forced to go to pharmacist school. We don't need laws shutting down pharmacy schools, we need students to voluntarily stop going to pharmacy school. As long as students keep attending pharmacy school, they they are voting for the status quo. Why did you attend pharmacy school ? If it was anytime during the last 10 years, then just like today's students, you decided to take your chances that you would be able to differentiate yourself from the mob and "be different." Why should society squash your dreams and tell you "no" to going to pharmacy school, just because you weren't smart enough to figure that our for yourself?

I completely agree with Giga, the real solution is for the US government to stop financing this mess. That would clear up a lot of the problems, no laws or infringement on people's rights and freedoms needed.

 

[olabrador23]

Here's the thing, HungerGameVictor, nobody is being forced to go to pharmacist school. We don't need laws shutting down pharmacy schools, we need students to voluntarily stop going to pharmacy school. As long as students keep attending pharmacy school, they they are voting for the status quo. Why did you attend pharmacy school ? If it was anytime during the last 10 years, then just like today's students, you decided to take your chances that you would be able to differentiate yourself from the mob and "be different." Why should society squash your dreams and tell you "no" to going to pharmacy school, just because you weren't smart enough to figure that our for yourself?

I completely agree with Giga, the real solution is for the US government to stop financing this mess. That would clear up a lot of the problems, no laws or infringement on people's rights and freedoms needed.

people might complain that why they do not get the money to go to pharmacy schools while students who are majoring in many useless subjects do and/or lawsuits as the results...

 

[Pharmacy is a Scam]

The imbalance in supply and demand of pharmacists will eventually correct itself, just not as soon as you want it to.

Disagree. Everyone talks about the supply and demand curve for pharmacists as if it should behave as a simple linear regression model would, and if you think of it this way then you would be inclined to think that the job market will “eventually correct itself” so long as we fix the number of new grads coming out of pharmacy school each year. However, the problem is that while there is a strong correlation between supply and demand, the labor curve for pharmacists in reality behaves like a multiple linear regression model where there are several explanatory variables including not just supply but advances in technology/automation that directly impact the predictive variable (demand), meaning that the demand for pharmacists is changing independent of the supply problem. This on top of the fact that the value proposition of a retail pharmacist is about 0 and the value proposition of a “clinical pharmacist” is predicated on featherbedding and territorialism and the value proposition of a pharmacist in general is based on self-proclaimed validation and it’s easy to see why our profession is going down the dumps because it is in a lose-lose-lose situation. The triple whammy, as they call it.

Let me give an example to drive home the point— the demand for lawyers does indeed follow a true simple linear regression relationship because people are always going to need lawyers and these are jobs that cannot be automated, therefore, the oversupply of new grad lawyers is the root cause of why law is saturated. Contrast that to pharmacy where, as explained above, people do not NEED pharmacists and are looking for ways to deliver pharmacy services without the use of/with minimal use of pharmacists using technology/automation such as telemedicine, mail order, etc. So my point is, even if there are 0 new grads in pharmacy for the next 20 years, the pharmacist profession will still die due to technology because that is something that is happening independent of the supply of available pharmacists. We all tend to focus on the “saturation” problem as the root cause of this profession’s failure but that is just one of the problems we have to face. Again, because the value prop of the profession is not predicated on anything, there are just too many battles to fight which is why this profession is a sinking ship.

 

[DrVader]

I understand you want saturation to disappear. Of course you want less competition for jobs and better job security. The imbalance in supply and demand of pharmacists will eventually correct itself, just not as soon as you want it to. My point is how are you going to come to terms with that reality and start focusing on things that you can actually control?

Proposing to fix things by shutting down schools isn't a sensible solution. There is no practical way for you as an individual, or even an organized group of people, to legally shut down a bunch of pharmacy schools. Not to mention that shutting down schools and trying to recreate a pharmacist shortage introduces a whole slew of problems for the rest of society, so it's not a viable solution. It is simply a fantasy.

Shutting down pharmacy schools is exactly what will happen. When news of the saturation permeates to the general public, enrollment will drop. Class size will shrink and schools will shut down. The general public almost always behind the curve. Smart people will get their money out of the system. Choose a different profession and pivot. A lot of people knew about the collapse of 2008 before it happened. Just like right now, it is known that Medicare and social security are insolvent and close to being bankrupt. Current antibiotics will be effectively useless in the next coming decades. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, dementia, and Alzheimer's will break the healthcare system of every first world country. Just like Chernobyl, we will seemly wait till it blows up in our face.

 

[johnpharm01]

Giga, if you think saturation is a good thing for patients, think again. A saturation creates an environment where pharmacists are overworked and pushed to the limits because they are afraid of losing their jobs. I worked when it was a shortage market. People did not go without their medicine because there was a shortage of pharmacists it never got that close. It just hampered businesses expanding.

I believe if you commit 6 + years to an education, time and effort to pass exams, and a lifestyle that avoids crime you should be able to have a good chance of landing a job you like. Why don't med schools and dental schools just balloon in numbers and lower standards to produce more doctors. Are they being unethical.

I agree with you that closing schools is unrealistic but they will close themselves.

 

[owlegrad]

Disagree. Everyone talks about the supply and demand curve for pharmacists as if it should behave as a simple linear regression model would, and if you think of it this way then you would be inclined to think that the job market will “eventually correct itself” so long as we fix the number of new grads coming out of pharmacy school each year. However, the problem is that while there is a strong correlation between supply and demand, the labor curve for pharmacists in reality behaves like a multiple linear regression model where there are several explanatory variables including not just supply but advances in technology/automation that directly impact the predictive variable (demand), meaning that the demand for pharmacists is changing independent of the supply problem. This on top of the fact that the value proposition of a retail pharmacist is about 0 and the value proposition of a “clinical pharmacist” is predicated on featherbedding and territorialism and the value proposition of a pharmacist in general is based on self-proclaimed validation and it’s easy to see why our profession is going down the dumps because it is in a lose-lose-lose situation. The triple whammy, as they call it.

Let me give an example to drive home the point— the demand for lawyers does indeed follow a true simple linear regression relationship because people are always going to need lawyers and these are jobs that cannot be automated, therefore, the oversupply of new grad lawyers is the root cause of why law is saturated. Contrast that to pharmacy where, as explained above, people do not NEED pharmacists and are looking for ways to deliver pharmacy services without the use of/with minimal use of pharmacists using technology/automation such as telemedicine, mail order, etc. So my point is, even if there are 0 new grads in pharmacy for the next 20 years, the pharmacist profession will still die due to technology because that is something that is happening independent of the supply of available pharmacists. We all tend to focus on the “saturation” problem as the root cause of this profession’s failure but that is just one of the problems we have to face. Again, because the value prop of the profession is not predicated on anything, there are just too many battles to fight which is why this profession is a sinking ship.

Actually lawyer jobs are being automated. Vice did a fascinating episode about it. You should look it up if you are interested in seeing how automation is affecting them.

 

[beautifulrobot]

people might complain that why they do not get the money to go to pharmacy schools while students who are majoring in many useless subjects do and/or lawsuits as the results...

Yes, it would have to be a system-wide reform that's not just targeted at pharmacy schools. There would have to be some kind of transparent, consistent, and predictable loan granting program that creates incentives for the right educational programs, based on data-driven decisions of what the "right" educational programs are for any given time period. It would be complicated and imperfect, but no system is perfect, and I think we could improve upon what we currently have.

 

[beautifulrobot]

So my point is, even if there are 0 new grads in pharmacy for the next 20 years, the pharmacist profession will still die due to technology because that is something that is happening independent of the supply of available pharmacists. We all tend to focus on the “saturation” problem as the root cause of this profession’s failure but that is just one of the problems we have to face. Again, because the value prop of the profession is not predicated on anything, there are just too many battles to fight which is why this profession is a sinking ship.

Although I agree "saturation" is not the only issue our profession faces, you're giving technology too much credit and pharmacists too little credit.

 

[beautifulrobot]

Shutting down pharmacy schools is exactly what will happen. When news of the saturation permeates to the general public, enrollment will drop. Class size will shrink and schools will shut down. The general public almost always behind the curve. Smart people will get their money out of the system. Choose a different profession and pivot. A lot of people knew about the collapse of 2008 before it happened. Just like right now, it is known that Medicare and social security are insolvent and close to being bankrupt. Current antibiotics will be effectively useless in the next coming decades. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, dementia, and Alzheimer's will break the healthcare system of every first world country. Just like Chernobyl, we will seemly wait till it blows up in our face.

You forgot catastrophic climate change and nuclear war with North Korea

And yes, some schools will eventually shutdown, either because they get so desperate for applicants that they pull some illegal marketing tactics and eventually get caught, or because it is simply no longer profitable to keep the lights on. Although, I predict, it will be a very slow process, and none of us can directly speed it up. As you point out, the general public is usually behind the curve, and there is no shortage of uninformed and gullible people for schools to take advantage of.

Either way, even as pharmacy schools start to shutdown and the market corrects itself, we will never return to the days of a pharmacist shortage unless something very drastic and unpredictable happens. If it's any solace, the problems the pharmacy profession faces aren't entirely unique. There just aren't enough "good jobs" out there for everyone.

 

[VA77]

Giga....can we vote you in to take Lucinda's place!

 

[DrVader]

You forgot catastrophic climate change and nuclear war with North Korea

And yes, some schools will eventually shutdown, either because they get so desperate for applicants that they pull some illegal marketing tactics and eventually get caught, or because it is simply no longer profitable to keep the lights on. Although, I predict, it will be a very slow process, and none of us can directly speed it up. As you point out, the general public is usually behind the curve, and there is no shortage of uninformed and gullible people for schools to take advantage of.

Either way, even as pharmacy schools start to shutdown and the market corrects itself, we will never return to the days of a pharmacist shortage unless something very drastic and unpredictable happens. If it's any solace, the problems the pharmacy profession faces aren't entirely unique. There just aren't enough "good jobs" out there for everyone.

Here is the problem, the current student loan market is in a bubble. When it bursts, these kids won't be able to get loans. Loan lenders are not stupid.