Why do nurses think that nursing salaries are so terrible? Around my metropolitian area, new nurses can start at 25-27 dollars an hour. That is at least $50,000 per year. Conversely, many of my friends who just graduated with degrees in biology and chemistry are lucky if they are making $40,000 per year. In fact, many of them continued on to grad school because they couldn't even find jobs, and as a nurse I will certainly not have that problem. Granted, my friends who are engineers make more, but I don't think $50,000 is anything to grumble over. Yet, I have heard many nurses say that they are not paid comparable salaries to other college educated professions. I realize that nurses in rural areas don't make this much, but then just about all salaries are lower in rural areas than metropolitan areas. Please don't flame me, I'm just interested in hearing everyone's thoughts and opinions on this. Maybe I'm just naively optimistic because I'm still a student.