Orca21
1. You can live like a student/grad student i.e. rent a room in a house in Santa Barbara relatively cheaply. Owning a house is another story. Median house prices right now (Jan 2014) in Santa Barbara are about $800,000 and at the very low end they are in the $450 range.
3. The salaries you quote are for biologists, mostly in Biotech, they are not anywhere near Marine Biologist salaries there is a significant error in the biologist website, all biologists are lumped together. at Scripps, marine associates are making about $19/hr or $38K/year with some experience. That is probably comparable to Santa Barbara but it is not clear talking to my friends there that jobs are available.
2. I don't know any private companies doing marine conservation; there are some foundations but they pay grad student wages or rely on volunteers.
4. If your wife is a doctor/lawyer then sure. If she is working in a laboratory (with a PhD) then probably not, but a lot depends on where exactly you want to live near SB.
Santa Barbara is a great place, good diving, great city life, BUT it is one of the most expensive places in California to live, and California is not terribly cheap to start with.
I certainly don't want to discourage you from trying, but
a. Marine Biology doesn't pay well (unless you are a professor at UCSB)
b. Santa Barbara is great but really expensive, although everything near the water in CA is expensive.
c. There are not a lot of marine biology jobs out there in SB. Scripps in San Diego is a possibility ($40K/yr) but it too is expensive.
Bill
