No idea that professors made this much money

[Anonymous]

Professors are not that well paid. The top people that administer universities are paid well. In addition, sometimes universities will fire a very well known superstar for a lot of money.

I looked peers. I am a research scientist working for a private company; these are people I went to school with. Smart and productive people.

Looking up some truly brilliant people I know in CAL, I see some higher salaries. One makes 288K, but, but he is a rock star. Another in comparable to me and makes 168K at Berkeley

The 200K+ salary is probably only the top 1% of faculty nationwide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let me "represent to you" the actual topic of this post ("professors") and the actual data, which demonstrates that a tiny slice of all econ post-secondary educators make 200k.

Your first posts stated that it was laughable that a new econ professor would make more than $125K; I corrected you with relevant data and personal experience. Then you chose to pick a fight with me on one of the very few topics I know more about than all but a couple of thousand people alive! And it's fine if you don't believe me; perhaps I'm simply a crazy person who impersonates an economics professor in his/her spare time. I guess it's fine if you don't believe the Cawley study I linked to either; perhaps he's a crazy person who makes up data when he's not busy with his Cornell duties. Same for this paper, which has a detailed description of the economics job market (table 9 lists new PhD salary quartiles for various types of jobs in 2010 dollars).

I was interested in posting some of this information because I don't think people realize that a PhD can be a pretty decent investment, depending on field. I'm not disputing (nor confirming) tales of impoverished humanities PhDs struggling to make ends meet while adjuncting. But this simply does not exist for economics PhD students, including those graduating from the weakest programs. As with other relatively well-compensated fields, this is because of relatively richer private sector opportunities.

At any rate, I defer to you for the last word.

lol typical economists. is there any group of people more sure about their own intelligence than academic economists?

[Anonymous]

I make $195K. But law professors make more than other profs since they have to lure us from higher paying legal jobs.

[Anonymous]

Will the woman who is married to the “high earning Econ professor” please stop endlessly posting on this thread. Your husband’s (wife’s?) salary is not representative of the norm. Just put yourself and we will all be very impressed with you. Instead of seeking affirmation on this stupid board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Associate professors are creeping into the mid $200s now too, non-tenure track, and fresh out of PhD. Part of this is salary creep when mixed with an egalitarian university environment. When you pay $1m+ for the big name ‘vanity professors’ the folks that teach the rest of the core classes can’t be too many multiples off or you’d not be able to staff the courses.

In the US, nearly every “associate professor” is not only on the tenure track but past tenure. They aren’t new PhDs; their degrees are at least 6 years old.