I'd like to add another thought:
For someone who is young, without a college degree, and without family responsibilities, this career CAN be an excellent opportunity to make substantially more money.
I'm a part-time student at UC Berkeley, and I can tell you that MANY college graduates get out without decent jobs. Many of my friends from high school went on to college and graduated, and what are they doing now? Either unemployed or stuck doing dead-end jobs at $15 bucks an hour (if that), living in Northern California out of their parents' house.
If you'd like to sample what a college graduate makes out of a prestigious college like UC Berkeley, check out
http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/major.stm
For example, someone with a major in English has an avg. starting pay of $35k. Even a more useful degree like Economics starts out at $55k according to their surveys. Most of these students are California natives and will continue to live in CA, so that makes the situation that much worse.
The fact that an OTS has no college debt, and no lost wages from 4+ years of sitting in school, then being an ATC is one heck of a deal. My offer letter starts me at nearly $44k when I finish OKC and arrive at the terminal. Compared to the way MANY people have it in America, this really isn't bad. True, in California, a police officer may make more money, but these guys are working in dangerous areas, and their wage merely makes up for the extremely hazardous conditions. An ATCer may experience stress, but can't be killed in his line of service (except for that odd mid-air case in Europe where the guy was murdered by a family member).