Demoralized

[Anonymous]

I am a tenured professor and have worked in higher ed for a quarter of a century. It’s become insufferable. According to MIT’s living wage calculator, my salary is below a living wage. I earn less in one year than a full pay student pays in tuition, room and board. We get raises across the board, no more than 2% ever, no merit raises, and as such my salary is significantly less than my starting salary as an assistant professor when adjusted for inflation, and even worse when you calculate the changes to benefits. Each year we are asked to do more and more with fewer resources. Faculty are hostile to one another and the administration, students are cheating more than ever, entitled, and post unfair and untrue comments on social media and course evaluations.

The only saving grace at the moment is the tuition benefits for DCs. And that may even be on the chopping block.

Unfortunately I cannot make a lateral move in academia, and making any move whatsoever within academia is unlikely. I’ve applied for government jobs and nonprofits and gotten nowhere. Industry jobs in my area of expertise, if you can call them that, are even lower paying.

So as the subject says, the situation is all around demoralizing. I don’t know what to do.

[Anonymous]

I'm so sorry, OP. I've heard of non-tenured faculty living out of their cars. There's been a crisis in academia for years. It's outrageous that top level administrators are paying themselves huge salaries while leaving their brains in the dust.

Are you the sole wage-earner, or does your spouse have a job too?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm so sorry, OP. I've heard of non-tenured faculty living out of their cars. There's been a crisis in academia for years. It's outrageous that top level administrators are paying themselves huge salaries while leaving their brains in the dust.

Are you the sole wage-earner, or does your spouse have a job too?

Thanks, no spouse (divorced from a deadbeat), so it’s all on me.

[Anonymous]

Meanwhile if you’re at a top division one school the head coaches of football and basketball are pulling in over a million per year.

[Anonymous]

Is your field mainstream enough that you could switch to teaching at a private high school? I think the pay is slightly better and there’s no expectation of publishing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a tenured professor and have worked in higher ed for a quarter of a century. It’s become insufferable. According to MIT’s living wage calculator, my salary is below a living wage. I earn less in one year than a full pay student pays in tuition, room and board. We get raises across the board, no more than 2% ever, no merit raises, and as such my salary is significantly less than my starting salary as an assistant professor when adjusted for inflation, and even worse when you calculate the changes to benefits. Each year we are asked to do more and more with fewer resources. Faculty are hostile to one another and the administration, students are cheating more than ever, entitled, and post unfair and untrue comments on social media and course evaluations.

The only saving grace at the moment is the tuition benefits for DCs. And that may even be on the chopping block.

Unfortunately I cannot make a lateral move in academia, and making any move whatsoever within academia is unlikely. I’ve applied for government jobs and nonprofits and gotten nowhere. Industry jobs in my area of expertise, if you can call them that, are even lower paying.

So as the subject says, the situation is all around demoralizing. I don’t know what to do.

This sounds like poli sci or history or something you should have known better than to get a PhD in? Can you make a radical shift? Go to nursing school or something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a tenured professor and have worked in higher ed for a quarter of a century. It’s become insufferable. According to MIT’s living wage calculator, my salary is below a living wage. I earn less in one year than a full pay student pays in tuition, room and board. We get raises across the board, no more than 2% ever, no merit raises, and as such my salary is significantly less than my starting salary as an assistant professor when adjusted for inflation, and even worse when you calculate the changes to benefits. Each year we are asked to do more and more with fewer resources. Faculty are hostile to one another and the administration, students are cheating more than ever, entitled, and post unfair and untrue comments on social media and course evaluations.

The only saving grace at the moment is the tuition benefits for DCs. And that may even be on the chopping block.

Unfortunately I cannot make a lateral move in academia, and making any move whatsoever within academia is unlikely. I’ve applied for government jobs and nonprofits and gotten nowhere. Industry jobs in my area of expertise, if you can call them that, are even lower paying.

So as the subject says, the situation is all around demoralizing. I don’t know what to do.

This sounds like poli sci or history or something you should have known better than to get a PhD in? Can you make a radical shift? Go to nursing school or something?

What crap comments, PP. Just don't post if you're going to be rude and make insane suggestions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is your field mainstream enough that you could switch to teaching at a private high school? I think the pay is slightly better and there’s no expectation of publishing.

I could move to a private high school (as long as they are ok with me not having a teaching license), but the pay is significantly worse even than academia. It would be a gamble as to whether or not the actual work environment were better, there are no guarantees there. I have friends who have lost their academic jobs and moved to private high schools, and they all took pay cuts and some (but not all) report terrible working conditions there as well, especially in dealing with parents. I do not have a problem with publishing, it is teaching that is wearing more on me in a culture of growing student entitlement (college as a business transaction/consumer model rather than a pursuit of learning) and lower standards of academic and personal integrity.

I'll have a look at jobs, but it doesn't make financial sense, especially with the tuition benefits I have for dependents. But thank you, it is an option, if not a very desirable one.

[Anonymous]

I don’t quite see how you make less than a living wage but more than a high school teacher. Is it all the hours you work? What as t constitutes a living wage to you? I am in the private sector and my salary increase was also 2% this year.

[Anonymous]

Many of the professors at the Division I college in my town have side businesses going. Their side businesses are sometimes related to their field but many times are totally unrelated to their academic field.

Most of the restaurants in my town are owned and operated by groups of professors.

Those in biological sciences own research companies. Some of these companies now trade on the NY stock exchange. All of the research companies started on very very small shoe strings.

Can you keep your professor job for the benefits and start some kind of side gig?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t quite see how you make less than a living wage but more than a high school teacher. Is it all the hours you work? What as t constitutes a living wage to you? I am in the private sector and my salary increase was also 2% this year.

High school teachers don’t make a living wage either. Check out the calculator I cited in my original post - here are the results for DC for example (not where I live) https://livingwage.mit.edu/metros/47900

[Anonymous]

My cousin makes around $80 000 working as a researcher in an Ivy League school. Good thing his wife is the breadwinner, and he can continue to do what he really enjoys. Their lab is frequently in the news, you’d never guess a bunch of PhDs make this little.

[Anonymous]

Academia is a scam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a tenured professor and have worked in higher ed for a quarter of a century. It’s become insufferable. According to MIT’s living wage calculator, my salary is below a living wage. I earn less in one year than a full pay student pays in tuition, room and board. We get raises across the board, no more than 2% ever, no merit raises, and as such my salary is significantly less than my starting salary as an assistant professor when adjusted for inflation, and even worse when you calculate the changes to benefits. Each year we are asked to do more and more with fewer resources. Faculty are hostile to one another and the administration, students are cheating more than ever, entitled, and post unfair and untrue comments on social media and course evaluations.

The only saving grace at the moment is the tuition benefits for DCs. And that may even be on the chopping block.

Unfortunately I cannot make a lateral move in academia, and making any move whatsoever within academia is unlikely. I’ve applied for government jobs and nonprofits and gotten nowhere. Industry jobs in my area of expertise, if you can call them that, are even lower paying.

So as the subject says, the situation is all around demoralizing. I don’t know what to do.

This sounds like poli sci or history or something you should have known better than to get a PhD in? Can you make a radical shift? Go to nursing school or something?

What crap comments, PP. Just don't post if you're going to be rude and make insane suggestions.

Radical shift is not an insane suggestion when OP claims she doesn’t even make a living wage!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a tenured professor and have worked in higher ed for a quarter of a century. It’s become insufferable. According to MIT’s living wage calculator, my salary is below a living wage. I earn less in one year than a full pay student pays in tuition, room and board. We get raises across the board, no more than 2% ever, no merit raises, and as such my salary is significantly less than my starting salary as an assistant professor when adjusted for inflation, and even worse when you calculate the changes to benefits. Each year we are asked to do more and more with fewer resources. Faculty are hostile to one another and the administration, students are cheating more than ever, entitled, and post unfair and untrue comments on social media and course evaluations.

The only saving grace at the moment is the tuition benefits for DCs. And that may even be on the chopping block.

Unfortunately I cannot make a lateral move in academia, and making any move whatsoever within academia is unlikely. I’ve applied for government jobs and nonprofits and gotten nowhere. Industry jobs in my area of expertise, if you can call them that, are even lower paying.

So as the subject says, the situation is all around demoralizing. I don’t know what to do.

This sounds like poli sci or history or something you should have known better than to get a PhD in? Can you make a radical shift? Go to nursing school or something?

What crap comments, PP. Just don't post if you're going to be rude and make insane suggestions.

+1
Is “go to nursing school” the 2024 version of “learn to code?”