There's something seriously wrong with an industry if the cost of properly educating yourself to do the job isn't justified by the pay. That's absurd. This might seem silly, but my cousin's ex-girlfriend's father was apparently a pilot who was making around $250,000 a year. I also read an article in Forbes that placed the international airline pilot as one of the most prestigious and well-paid jobs in the country. So what everyone here is saying, basically, is that this is true IF you manage to land that kind of a job, and that EVERYONE is jocking for it, and that anything less isn't even really worth it?