This is just so much of American life outside of tech right now and I find it very upsetting. Basically none of the most socially beneficial work—medicine (see below) is an obvious example, but also teaching, academia, government—is remunerative enough versus the opportunity cost of tech (and maybe McKinsey, Bain, etc.) to attract the most talented people. Not sure how you solve this, or if this can even be solved without the sort of exogenous shock that no one wants. Certainly with respect to medicine at least, getting rid of Obamacare and maybe some tort reform would be a great first step, but it still doesn't solve the following problem: if you're a smart young man (and let's be real, smart young men are the ones who define tomorrow's prestige institutions), you have two options if you're even remotely scientifically inclined: (1) you go into tech, with or without a degree, and make bank or (2) you do a four year undergrad, two years of make-work "research" for resume padding, spend >$1000 on MCAT testing and applications, go ~400,000 in debt (+ever accruing interest) when you're finally in medical school, put up with all the lunatic ideologies there should some sort of mass panic take over (COVID, rapid-onset gender dysphoria being two good examples), make maybe $70-90k for four+, grueling years in residency, do some sort of specialized fellowship because everyone seemingly has to do that these days, and then start making low six figures in your early 30s, which you could have been making at 25 at some startup in San Francisco, only to finally, finally!! see some sort of positive ROI by your 40s when you've paid off all your debt.