By the standards of academia, that is completely untrue. When I graduated with a BSc Computer Science degree in 2011, the median starting salary for CS grads going to industry was $65k. For comparison, that's roughly the starting salary for someone who just got a tenure-track position in academia (source: http://www.higheredjobs.com/salary/salaryDisplay.cfm?SurveyI...).
So compare: in one field, you start earning a median $65k at age 22 with only a bachelor's degree, and in the other, you start earning $65k in your mid to late thirties, after a bachelor's, a PhD, and often at least one post-doc. Everything before that is "low-pay grinding", except that the academic definition of "low-pay" ranges from lower-middle class ($25k-$30k for the better-paid grad-students and worse-paid post-docs) to taking on debt (the humanities).
>>So compare: in one field, you start earning a median $65k at age 22
A median means that half the CS grads made less than 65k. Tenure track also comes with some eventual benefits you won't receive with a bachelor's in CS. Let's be clear about what we're actually comparing.
I doubt many people at all are making exactly $65k.
However I also doubt that many CS grads at all are making significantly less than $65k. Those that are making appreciably less than that are almost certainly not working in the field, or they are not working in the US. I wager that the salary distribution of CS grads working in the field in the US is pretty damn tight.
My first programming job in northern VA in 2002 paid 38k and I had a CS degree. I suspect most people make less than 65k because the few at 120+k take many people at 40k to balance things out.
Granted, the job market was crap and I make 6 figures now, but there are still plenty of sub 40k programming jobs out there and people happy to take them.
Your assuming salaries are not inflated and that the ratio of people reporting salaries is constant at all income ranges and the reported numbers are accurate. I doubt any of those are true. So, IMO to observe a 65k median suggests the actual median is below 65k.
PS: Don't forget grad students count as recent CS grads and there generally not making anywhere close to 65K.
Country specific. I've got a Masters degree in CS, work for a company which employs over 6000 programmers worldwide, work in UK, and as a Junior programmer I started with 18k pounds/annum(~28k us dollars). I actually have friends who are doing their PhDs at the moment and they make more money by just being PhD students than I do.
So compare: in one field, you start earning a median $65k at age 22 with only a bachelor's degree, and in the other, you start earning $65k in your mid to late thirties, after a bachelor's, a PhD, and often at least one post-doc. Everything before that is "low-pay grinding", except that the academic definition of "low-pay" ranges from lower-middle class ($25k-$30k for the better-paid grad-students and worse-paid post-docs) to taking on debt (the humanities).