It’s a colloquial term. My best friend is a psychologist and she taught me that distinction (I’m not a native English speaker), and I genuinely didn’t know some people took offense to it. Never meant for it to be tiered. I know psychology is a science, and a natural one at that. You’re the one acting like your field is somehow special and better than others. I tried to be general and you said your field doesn’t fit in, so ‘you already said stem’ makes zero sense.

Either way, I never said it was normal to pay for a PhD? I said it’s a huge pay cut vs working and industry job, which not everyone can take. Some people have others financially depend on them, and they can’t just decide to accept eating half of what they could otherwise for self fulfilment purposes.