Asklemmy

Teaching.

College degree mandatory, graduate degree preferred.

Yearly continuing education costs.

Out of pocket expenses for classroom materials.

Sometimes providing food for kids who don't have it.

Famously low salaries and very long hours.

College professors. Most are part time adjunct, most make garbage pay, work their asses off, while university executives make bank.

Philosopher

Musician. I have 7 years of university level studies and 12 years of work experience, and I make less than median salary in Sweden.

Teaching, 100%. Incredibly important, some of the most dedicated people in any field, and they're paid peanuts. Oh yeah, and they work like 12 hours a day. The way we treat them is a disgrace.

Social work. It's criminal.

In the US, most professors are part time adjunct and get no health benefits. Probably make 30-50k.

Tenured faculty at major universities make 70-90k.

Considering these jobs requires at least 9 years of uni (in the US), the lifetime income of professors is still very low.

RE TAs: I US stem fields TAs work 20h and make 15-30k. That usually includes free tuition, but not in all states (e.g. in Texas, you sometimes pay tuition out of your TA pay, which is crazy)

Public defenders make the list. Last figures I saw average salary is around $65k.

Emt/paramedic

Postdoc

Social worker?

Teachers and social workers

Veterinarians

Foresters. You have to have a degree(most are 2 years, but still), and you can make less than the fed poverty rate. The exception is a federal job, but those are very competitive.

Librarians from what I've heard. They usually require a masters degree but the pay usually doesn't reflect that.

Pilots. It's been some time since I read about it. I read some of the small puddle jumper pilots make so little they qualify for SNAP. Sure flying the big boys makes a bunch of money though.

Around here (Brazil), psychologists come to mind. The degree alone is worth jack shit, healthcare plans will usually pay lunch money per 1h session 3 months after said session, advertising psy services super regulated, patients have a significant chance of ghosting you, the federal council is great at fucking up graduates and workers, rather than protecting them, and most people would rather do any sort of trendy stupid holistic shit like familiar constellation, NLP, reiki and whatnot.

Source: had a gf with said degree and a postgrad in neuropsychology. Of her graduating class of 8, only 1 found "success" so to speak.

Librarian.

In sweden it needed 4 or 5 (or 4.5?) years of uni, only to have a hard time even getting a job, a job paying really low.

Not the lowest, for sure, but I'm going to put my hat in for auto technicians. Master techs can make over $100K in southern New England but the cost of tools can easily rival college tuition by the time you're a master tech. Everything except proprietary equipment and the car lift needs to be bought by the technician, which can cost thousands of dollars. Health insurance is prohibitively expensive, the flat rate pay system means you only get paid when you complete jobs, and it's an ergonomic nightmare because you're picking up heavy objects and working in cramped areas all day.

As someone who whose fiance was a mechanic until last year, I think it's really disingenuous to hear so many people say that the trades are your fast track to making money. Very little of that $150/ hr that you pay goes to the person working on your car. For every lift the shop has they're taking 80% or more off the top of that $150/ hr, and if the job takes longer than expected the mechanic doesn't make any more money. In fact they're losing money because they're stuck figuring out a solution instead of moving on to the next car.

And don't even get me started on tool loans. It's straight up worse than student loans because they're classified as personal loans. My student loans all hover around 5% interest, but right now personal loans go up to 18% depending on the term. The only saving grace I can think of is that they're usually dischargeable in bankruptcy.

I really could go on all day about how broken it all is because I've lived it secondhand for a while now, and now that I'm trying to gain more of these skills for my classic motorcycle hobby it's all so obvious. Not sure if the other trades like plumbing and welding have the same "take out loans to pay for tools to make money to pay for the loans, then learn more skills within the trade to make more money, and then take out more loans for tools to do the more advanced work" cycle but no one ever mentions this when they talk about how this kind of work is so lucrative.

Don't get me wrong, college is really badly overpriced in the US, but the trades absolutely can be just as expensive once you've made it your career. And I don't want to dissuade people from considering it as a career, either, but it's a monetary risk that you need to really sit down and calculate before you take the plunge, just like college.

Teachers for sure. Highly educated people providing a service that's absolutely crucial for everybody and they're paid like shit even before you consider the number of out-of-work hours they end up working.

Teachers in the US. Hands down.

Biology, unless you go into health related stuff.

In Australia any lab technician positions 4 year degree and start at AUD$65k, Max out at $80k or so. Equivalent engineering degrees max out at $120k for plebs.

Dead-end science phds making like $50K a year. Unfortunately, I have to manage/fire a lot of these people. People need to think and calculate carefully before going to grad school.