No idea that professors made this much money

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Top professors in many fields make a lot of money. Their numbers are few compared to the total faculty count. What OP is saying is like assuming every law-firm associate makes the same salary as a partner.

OP hasn't even bothered to google who those people are. The first person mentioned, Angel Cabrera, is the president of the University of 35,000 students, thousands of professors and admin. and service personnel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some salaries in higher ed are inflated for sure, especially in administration and business and law schools. but MBAs and JD programs are also piggie banks for the school because students pay full freight. And as others have said this does not apply to your average sociology professor, especially pre-tenure. my friend who was at the top of his field at an Ivy in a humanities niche made less than I did (7 years into teAching) in my first job out of law school as a law clerk! Now he makes $150k after 10 years of tenure (in NYC, so adjust for COL). A nice job but not a boondoggle.

Humanities super super stars can make bank (by switching schools and bidding up their salaries) but this is rare.

Right, but what’s the market, outside of academia, for someone with a degree in a “humanities niche”? There is no market.

[Anonymous]

OP, you are delusional. The only people who make high wages in academia are specialty professors they pull from the private sector at the end of very successful careers or high level administrators (not faculty positions.)

Even tenured professors are lucky if they make six figures.

[Anonymous]

This was quite an eye opening thread for me and the PP comments helped me understand. Middle managers make $330k? Ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are delusional. The only people who make high wages in academia are specialty professors they pull from the private sector at the end of very successful careers or high level administrators (not faculty positions.)

Even tenured professors are lucky if they make six figures.

DP. Oh baloney. It’s not 1985.

[Anonymous]

Work at a business school and make $$$$

[Anonymous]

My sibling is a tenured professor at a research institution. He makes about $155k. I'd think that's much more standard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are delusional. The only people who make high wages in academia are specialty professors they pull from the private sector at the end of very successful careers or high level administrators (not faculty positions.)

Even tenured professors are lucky if they make six figures.

This is simply false. The starting salary for econ professors fresh out grad school is $125-175K, depending on the quality of school. Full professors make $200-250k at a lower-ranked program, and $300-400K at a better department, with outliers making upper six figures or into seven figures. Econ is a relatively well-compensated discipline, but it is hardly the only one, and some other disciplines (e.g. finance, accounting) make more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are delusional. The only people who make high wages in academia are specialty professors they pull from the private sector at the end of very successful careers or high level administrators (not faculty positions.)

Even tenured professors are lucky if they make six figures.

DP. Oh baloney. It’s not 1985.

SPend some quality time with this data, it will tell you the truth about professor salaries (at least for state schools in virginia) in 2017-2018:

http://data.richmond.com/salaries/2016/state

[Anonymous]

Shocking. No wonder tuition is so high. Ridulous.

[Anonymous]

Full prof in social sciences. I make abt 100k as do most of my colleagues. No one i know makes 200k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some salaries in higher ed are inflated for sure, especially in administration and business and law schools. but MBAs and JD programs are also piggie banks for the school because students pay full freight. And as others have said this does not apply to your average sociology professor, especially pre-tenure. my friend who was at the top of his field at an Ivy in a humanities niche made less than I did (7 years into teAching) in my first job out of law school as a law clerk! Now he makes $150k after 10 years of tenure (in NYC, so adjust for COL). A nice job but not a boondoggle.

Humanities super super stars can make bank (by switching schools and bidding up their salaries) but this is rare.

Right, but what’s the market, outside of academia, for someone with a degree in a “humanities niche”? There is no market.

Why is that a relevant question? The job of a professor is to be a professor in a university, so comparing them to someone on the general job market doesn't make any sense. At any rate, someone smart and hard-working enough to get tenure at an Ivy and be at the top of their field would likely do just fine outside of a university setting as well.

[Anonymous]

The 2 guys on that list from UVA making $500K are a very established cardiovascular surgeon and eye surgeon.
Those are some of the outlier fields in medicine..it's not surprising that the university pays them that much.
They'd make similar in private practice at that point in their careers.. they're in the most lucrative medical fields.

[Anonymous]

DH is a couple years away from tenure in a STEM field. He makes just over $100k and expects a 20% bump with tenure and no huge increases after that unless his research really takes off. I don’t feel it’s a particularly lucrative career path given his education and skills. His friends from grad school and post-doc years who couldn’t get faculty jobs tend to make more money as industry scientists or in medical sales. He made much less than his current salary through grad school and post docs - into his early 30s.

I think his is a much more typical scenario for a professor, and salaries are even more grim in the humanities.

[Anonymous]

I used to work at a DC university in public health about three years ago. They hired assistant profs at $85-$95 and most with tenure weren't earning much above $115k. A few rockstars out of many earned closer to $200k. The state research university I worked at in the midwest had tenured people at the END of their careers earning $120k max (most were in the $80k range).

You have to really love the subject matter (or like not having to dress a particular way), because you'll never be rich being a professor.