Just wanna chime in,
My RN mother who has been an RN for about 30 years makes about 38$ an hour. Starting salaries in the midwest are around 15-20$ for BS RN's. Initial salary averages for the nation for RN's is $45,040. Median salary is $65,470 nationwide, with top 10% making $94,720.
On glassdoor, average starting salary for Nuclear Operators (non licensed) was $64,090 based on 2004 numbers (cant find anything recent). Median salary is $72,000 on indeed.com's job listings. That doesn't include outage bonuses and forced overtime Id imagine.
Not saying RN's don't do well for themselves, but I have plenty of friends relatively fresh out of school making almost no money paying off student loans for their nursing degree. My wife's sister is a magnum cum laude graduate from UofM with a nursing degree, and had no problem finding a job.... she started ~20$ an hour at the local big wig hospital. There's decent money in operations; I don't think anyone here is denying that. Job stresses and responsibilities are the key factors I guess. If you hated your job at 35$ an hour, or loved your job at 20-25$ an hour, whats better over all? Thats really all thats being discussed.
1) True, $35/hr for a 40 hour week, 50 weeks a year is around $72k/year, but doesn't account for overtime (which I admit I try not to figure in when looking at pay). However, I've seen about a dozen or so postings in the last few weeks for NLOs, this is the only one I've seen with the pay posted.
2) I will also agree I don't know how the jobs are for the civilian nuclear world right now either, so it might require a little extra effort on the sailors part to prepare for separating.
3) There are plenty of nukes that get their degrees using TA. It's somewhat difficult when on a sub (Full disclosure: I'm a surface guy, I know nothing about sub life), but on a carrier or on shore duty is completely possible with a little effort. So this point is somewhat invalid.
I agree, employers will not be "begging" navy nukes to work for them. It does require a little effort on our part to find the job, but a navy nuke can find jobs that are close to or in the 6 figure range (they went direct SRO/RO and shift supervisors at non-nuke plants). The guys I know that did that were not 6 or 8 and out guys, I think they were all 10+ years or just under 10 years.
1) Of all the job postings for NLO I've seen, 28-36$ has been the norm across the fleets.
2) Correct. Unfortunately, no one IN the navy has any freaking clue, so its kind of a catch 22.
3) "plenty of nukes" O.o. guess we had a lazy ship, because I remember a whopping 3 people get their degree while onboard. Its not "Easy" for anyone.