Optometrists make less than you might think. Official U.S. Navy Page/flickr One of the main reasons people go to college and graduate school is to find a high-paying job when they're done.

But a college education and a prestigious job do not necessarily mean you'll be raking in the cash.

Some of these gigs, like being an architect or an optometrist, pay well below what you might expect.

Using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on the mean salary of full-time civilian workers, we've picked out some of the most prestigious jobs that have surprisingly low earnings.