Not really. My mother, a registered nurse for her entire working life, made less at her retirement than I did at 25 as a software developer (and in Portland, not even SF). Even if she had gone into management, she would have never made as much as I do now.<p>And this was as a RN at a hospital with a strong union presence. Hospitals today do everything they can to hire as few RNs as possible, because they draw a higher salary than LPNs and medical assistants. And the better nursing programs out there are extremely expensive, resulting in the same kind of debt load that other professional careers have started having recently.