Saturday, February 25, 2006
Professional Pay and Rural Benefits
There's a neat discussion at Instapundit.com on the topic of whether "we pay lawyers too much, and scientists and engineers too little".
As an ex-engineer with kids in each of those categories, I wonder if the trend to favoring lawyer salaries will continue. While it's true that a market that pays lawyers more will generate more lawyers, it's also true that all trends crest. It's troubling that only 4% of college students go into science or engineering when so much of our economic productivity is dependent on applied creativity in those fields. (I wonder if that figure includes Information Science & Technology?)
Some make the case that salary differentials can be offset by improvements in "qualty of life" issues in the lab bureaucracies. I think the more interesting (motivational) observation is that entrepreneural engineering and science can lead to pretty huge rewards - as it has recently in the computer and communications fields.
With enough broadband communications and some creative business modeling, you don't need to cluster engineers in central labs; you can offer a rural lifestyle and a collaborative internetted working environment. Faster please with the broadband infrastructure deployment.
As an ex-engineer with kids in each of those categories, I wonder if the trend to favoring lawyer salaries will continue. While it's true that a market that pays lawyers more will generate more lawyers, it's also true that all trends crest. It's troubling that only 4% of college students go into science or engineering when so much of our economic productivity is dependent on applied creativity in those fields. (I wonder if that figure includes Information Science & Technology?)
Some make the case that salary differentials can be offset by improvements in "qualty of life" issues in the lab bureaucracies. I think the more interesting (motivational) observation is that entrepreneural engineering and science can lead to pretty huge rewards - as it has recently in the computer and communications fields.
With enough broadband communications and some creative business modeling, you don't need to cluster engineers in central labs; you can offer a rural lifestyle and a collaborative internetted working environment. Faster please with the broadband infrastructure deployment.
