<p>I think this is fairly obvious to all, but those average salaries in law and medicine are heavily skewed by the high end medical specialists and the old school “big law” power lawyers - jobs that are pretty hard to come by for the new grads. New lawyers, even from good schools, are luckily to find jobs at all these days, much less elite-level jobs, and doctors who aren’t in one of the high-end specialties don’t make nearly as much as most people think. Let me put it this way - if you’re giving someone a shot in an exam room, like in the picture, you’re not making a 6 figure salary in most cases. That’s why jobs like public defender, family medicine physician, heck, even teacher, are becoming less desirable. Tuition continues to rise and requirements become steeper (jobs that used to just require a BA/BS now require a masters degree, jobs that used to require a masters degree now require a PhD, etc.) but salaries remain flat, so who can afford to take on the school debt? You can’t expect people to be happy with a 50k a year job upon graduation if they had to rack up 120k+ in debt to get it.</p>