{"id":20661,"date":"2018-10-13T12:07:36","date_gmt":"2018-10-13T16:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=20661"},"modified":"2018-10-26T10:06:06","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T14:06:06","slug":"merchant-marine-education-and-starting-salary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/13\/merchant-marine-education-and-starting-salary\/","title":{"rendered":"Merchant Marine education and starting salary"},"content":{"rendered":"

I helped with a project for the Massachusetts Maritime Academy<\/a> and learned that tuition, room, and board is $26,000 per year for four years compared to a starting salary of $120,000 per year (to be on a ship for 6 months per year). A graduate from two years earlier said that he has paid off all of his loans and now is shopping for a house and an airplane. Within five years, the pay can rise to $180,000 per year. After that, the sailor is qualified to be a captain and earn $240,000+\/year, but these jobs are scarce and cannot be obtained immediately or by everyone. The true dream job is to be a harbor pilot (see “Earn $400 per hour in a government-regulated job<\/a>“), but these may require family connections.<\/p>\n

How are the gender wars doing at the academy? “About 5 percent of the cadets are women,” said the recent graduate. Why so few when the school offers such a great ROI? “A woman doesn’t need to go out in 80-knot weather to spend a third mate’s pay.” [I think that he was referring to marriage, but under Massachusetts family law<\/a>, she will be able to spend approximately one third of the paycheck after a brief unmarried encounter.]<\/p>\n

The above salaries are for U.S.-flagged cargo ships, which are required to have 75 percent American crew members (all unionized). Foreign-flagged cruise ships pay half as much. There wouldn’t be any U.S.-flagged ships at all if not for government regulations that restrict foreign-flagged vessels from certain kinds of operations and also direct payments from the U.S. military, which wants military cargo to go on U.S.-flagged vessels. Note that U.S.-flagged does not mean U.S.-owned, U.S.-built, or U.S.-managed. My source is working on a container ship that was built in South Korea and is owned and operated by Maersk<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I helped with a project for the Massachusetts Maritime Academy and learned that tuition, room, and board is $26,000 per year for four years compared to a starting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMerchant Marine education and starting salary - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/13\/merchant-marine-education-and-starting-salary\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Merchant Marine education and starting salary - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I helped with a project for the Massachusetts Maritime Academy and learned that tuition, room, and board is $26,000 per year for four years compared to a starting […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/13\/merchant-marine-education-and-starting-salary\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-10-13T16:07:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-10-26T14:06:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"philg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"philg\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/13\/merchant-marine-education-and-starting-salary\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/13\/merchant-marine-education-and-starting-salary\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"philg\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\"},\"headline\":\"Merchant Marine education and starting salary\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-10-13T16:07:36+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-10-26T14:06:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/13\/merchant-marine-education-and-starting-salary\/\"},\"wordCount\":320,\"commentCount\":3,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/13\/merchant-marine-education-and-starting-salary\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/13\/merchant-marine-education-and-starting-salary\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/13\/merchant-marine-education-and-starting-salary\/\",\"name\":\"Merchant Marine education and starting salary - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-10-13T16:07:36+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-10-26T14:06:06+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/13\/merchant-marine-education-and-starting-salary\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/13\/merchant-marine-education-and-starting-salary\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/13\/merchant-marine-education-and-starting-salary\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Merchant Marine education and starting salary\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\",\"description\":\"A posting every day; 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