@ericn I mean, 1 in 4 law students has 200k student debt, average of 140k, and for particular prestigeous programms you're looking at a ton of debt. Medical same story, but even a bit worse. And even here you can find yourself working your way up to the super salaries after long periods of study.
Then there's the hours. A lot of these high-paying jobs don't just require many years in school (e.g. a surgeon) but should also be corrected from the 80 hours a week (again, surgeons) back to a 40h workweek, at which point the salary is much less crazy.
There's obvious exceptions to this, in particular tech in FAANG. Quite unique to the US and the post 2000 tech bust, with high starting salaries for people with only a few years of uni without much college debt, and reasonable-ish hours. It remains to be seen if that lasts. There's always a hot industry in particular areas, the past 15y that's been SV tech. It's not unreasonable to chase it. But it cannot be said that what happened was inevitable, for two decades people have predicted the demise of tech valuations, silicon valley etc, for various reasons (similar to how law, finance etc boomed and busted). In hindsight everything is obvious.
That having been said, the US is and has been in another league in terms of super salaries, whereas Europe has a welfare state with more redistribution. The US model comes with its own set of problems. Just look at the dystopia Silicon Valley has become... I'm quite happy earning $85k in Europe at age 30, no debt, cheap health insurance, normal working hours, with low and middle income neighbours whose kids go to good schools and aren't drug addicts.