Total lifetime earnings is a great way to measure success, from the perspective of how the 7 billion people on this planet, minus you, value your work. If you value your own work differently, that's fine, but yours will be the minority opinion.

Overall low career pay to work difficulty ratio in comparison to other fields is a clear signal for young people to not pursue that option as a career. Despite the trope about falling education standards, the young people entering college and choosing their concentrations are not entirely stupid. They know that they won't get a job in the art field with that degree in art history. But they also know they won't get a job in the biology field with a biology degree, so they might as well study whatever they like, to qualify for that tier of mediocre jobs that just requires any 4-year degree.

I elected to stop at the bachelor's degree, because I could already tell that continuing beyond that in academia was very obviously not worth it. It wasn't just diminishing returns. After considering the money value of time, it was a negative return.

I am astonished at the huge number of supposedly smart people who will continue to suffer from institutional maltreatment for decades, willingly and without complaint, because they have somehow been brainwashed into thinking that they are lucky to have the opportunity to be worked like dogs without external recognition or remuneration.

Just don't do it. Get a bachelor's degree and go to work. If you wanted to be a doctor or lawyer, be a nurse or paralegal instead. Trade up later, if you can earn enough by working to pay for the extra degree, and you like doing that kind of work. My personal opinion is that nobody should be trying to pursue advanced degrees without ever doing any work in the real world first. When academia has to get its candidates to come back from the real world, rather than sinking its hooks into naive and gullible fresh graduates, a lot of the obvious problems would fix themselves.

Univ: Hey there, chief, how about you come back to school for a rewarding career in academia?
Dude: I have a job now. I can buy stuff like *actual* furniture and food with *nutrition and flavor*.
Univ: No worries. We'll give you a living stipend of $18000!
Dude: That is literally less than what my neighbor gets on welfare.
Univ: Does your neighbor get to work with prestigious professors on cutting edge research?
Dude: No. Is that what I'd be doing?
Univ: Yes! A little. And also doing most of the grunt work for the undergrad classes.
Dude: But after I finish, I would get to be one of those professors, right?
Univ: Welllllll.... possibly. You'd be an adjunct for a while. Maybe forever. [0]
Univ: It wouldn't be prestigious if we just hired everybody!
Dude: But they get paid well?
Univ: Our associate profs get paid a whopping $75000 per year! Full profs get $95000! [1]
Dude: So less than someone with a bachelor's degree in the right field [2], or public servants in certain places [3].
Dude: And that's if I even get a tenure-track job in the first place.
Univ: Discounted membership at the university athletic center?
Dude: Get lost.

[0] http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/the-adju...
[1] https://www.higheredjobs.com/salary/salaryDisplay.cfm?Survey...
[2] http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2014/majors-th...
[3] http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes333051.htm