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Anonymous wrote:

The market sets how much you pay for that education, and how much the professor gets paid for providing that education. If you don't think the university is worth $75k a year, you won't send your kids there, right? If the professor's labor is worth more than $3-5k per course, the university would pay more than that, right? How much is a gallon of water worth to you right now? I agree that our education system is wasteful and has incorrect priorities, I STRONGLY agree with this observation. However, this did not arise out of lack value placed on education. Similarly, the fact that bottle water sells for more than gasoline yet costs so little at the source isn't because of how little we value water.

NP. I read that PP's point was that it's clear we don't value education as a society because that money is not going to professors. It's going to the "brand." It's not the education that matters to people, it's the name on the diploma, similar to the name on a pair of jeans or the logo on a car.

And my point is that this is clearly hogwash because the value we place in something is *NOT* strictly correlated with what we pay for it. Again I use the water analogy: it is extremely valuable as without it we all would die. But water is in ready supply so even the bottled stuff is pretty affordable. Education is very valuable, without it we would regress as a civilization, but because educators are in such abundant supply, they are paid very little for providing education services. Again, how much we pay professors is not strictly correlated with the value of education since the market is so overly saturated in terms of provider-to-consumer ratio.

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Anonymous wrote:I am a tenured prof in the humanities in the DC area, and I make close to $100K. The benefits are autonomy (in terms of research and how I spend my time outside of the classroom), excellent work environment, and of course, life-time employment. I also benefit from a college tuition exchange program and free tuition for my children at my university. Social benefits include being the only non-lawyer at many parties in DC . I pay for our family's health insurance, which isn't cheap, but still cheaper than my spouse's. Fortunately, DH is in a much more lucrative field, but less stable, so it works out.

I have a tenured professor friend on the east coast. He confided in me that his pay wasn't very grand, something like $150k a year, but his wife is in finance and brings home major bank. He as a lot of opportunities to travel for conferences, board meetings, and etc. His social media page is filled with travel pictures all over the Americas and Europe. Every other week, he is having a 10 course meal with a nice bottle of wine somewhere exotic. He has more culture than all of my other friends combined. He is the smartest man I know from a raw intelligence point of view. He is also the smartest man I know from a life-enjoyment point of view.

He is smart because he married rich.

this. I don't know what the PP thinks this guy's example shows beyond that anyone can have a passion job and still have a luxurious lifestyle if they marry rich.

PP here. He will be traveling even if he didn't marry rich. His trips abroad are paid for by the school or whatever organization paid for him to be in attendance. Sure, if he wasn't married to an investment banker, he may have a smaller apartment in Jersey rather than a condo in Manhattan, but none of the stuff he shares on facebook shows off his personal wealth, which I know is substantial only in so far as I've known him all my life and we are quite close. What he has, money can't buy, as I can ably demonstrate if you happen to be the third person in the same room listening to our conversation.

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Listen to yourself, no one is denying anyone anything. It was THEIR choice to go into academic track, no one forced them into it. As with everyone else picking out a trade to practice, they picked out what they wanted to do, and must accept what the market determines as the value of their contribution. No one owes them anything.

this is partly true. yes it was their choice, but young people might not be aware of what that choice really means, and also, circumstances can change for the worse during the training. even at this topic, where people are supposedly informed, someone stated that professors make 300k without acknowledging the odds of getting such a position. very few people are aware of the realities of the academic market, and a vast majority of them are those who already have phds and have failed to land a good position. very few undergrads or their parents and even professors understand what the market is like.

when i entered phd program, it was still possible to go straight to TT after getting a phd. a decade later, it takes two or more postdocs to be competitive.

if you don't see the wast that is the academic system you are an idiot. the fact of the matter is that top schools could staff most of their departments with people who would pay to work. that's right, if you advertised harvard professorship that only has zero salary but where you need to pay, say, 50k a year to teach, you will still get many dozens of applicants for each position.

It is the responsibility of parents and educators to help educate young people and guide them towards making rational decisions. If a young person makes a poor decision due to poor parenting or education, it isn't the fault or the responsibility of the market to make them whole. To the contrary, it is very natural for the market to reveal just how difficult their choice is and force them to seek alternative career paths.

If someone is under the illusion that professors were well paid, that's due to a lack of effort in researching the pay of professors, especially in this day and age of information availability and transparency. I too wasted time in the process of my education. I have three degrees, one of which was redundant to a degree that I am certain I could have done without, and iffy on one more. Sure I got a sense of personal fulfillment out of the degrees, but the only one that makes me money is the third and last one. When I graduated with a CS degree, the tech bubble burst - talk about bad timing.

I am one of the PPs that tremendously argued that our current education system is wasteful, but it has little relationship with how well professors are paid since the situation is that there is an abundance of money, not lack thereof. If anything, the current wasteful education system encourages over-hiring of professors, and artificially high pay. Yet despite this, you have so many more people who wants to get into this academic track, is because parents/schools have been so passive and "supportive" of the whims of students so as to doom them to a life of disappointment.

Again, the point here isn't to gloat over people who can't find their way in the academic career path, or how well/poorly professors are paid, but that the market does not owe anyone anything - people are paid based on supply and demand, not how much we value the underlying education services. Simply put, people who can teach is in abundance, and therefore wages are low.

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Anonymous wrote:DH was a tenure track prof at AU 7 years ago - pay was less than a public school teacher and the benefits were way worse. We had to pay hundreds of dollars a month each for our kids health insurance - basically the full cost it was insane. They added ' partner benefits' but what benefits? Basically you have to have another job to survive in this area - write a textbook for freshman classes (high yield to make a lot of money, but not scholarly work), deliver newspapers- something. Marry rich?

Professors delivering newspapers on the side? That is sad I hate how little we value education in this country.

We value education, just like we also value water. But the value of a product/service is dependent on supply and demand. There is no shortage of well educated people who wants to stay in school and teach/research rather than move on to a career in the world. The reality of this is great: it will drive more such people to seek jobs elsewhere. It also allows the schools to be highly selective in who they accept to teach, improving both productivity and standard of teaching.

I don't know how true this is. It seems that universities have figured out they can save money by hiring more adjuncts and paying them a pittance (3-5k a course, no benefits) then tenure track professors who are paid at least a MC salary 70k + and benefits.

At the same time, tuition has been sky rocketing due to great salaries paid to administrators (who do...what exactly? push paper around). That is not valuing education.

Well, if an adjunct professor delivers education quality that meets the standards of the university, then what additional value do tenure-track professors bring? A separate question, is the skyrocketing tuition and admin salaries - yes we all should be outraged that colleges and universities are no longer mainly focused on education. Go visit any big state school - it's run like a luxury resort, with new buildings, new equipment, lavish facilities and landscaping. This is the direct result of easy student loans. I was in college back in the 90s - twenty years later, I don't even recognize the school from campus pictures anymore. I never dreamed of going to a out-of-state school unless I got merit scholarship - I was a pretty horrid student so in-state was pretty much my only choice. Most of my fellow classmates either worked their way through, got help from parents, or a combination thereof. The financial aid office was a small part of the admin building back then.

Tenure track professors bring grant money. They don't teach very many classes per semester. Unless it's at a teaching college (less desirable for many but not all), a tenure track professor isn't really hired for their teaching.

The adjunct-vs-tenured discussion was surrounding the topic of teaching. Again, if the economic benefit of tenured professor justifies their higher compensation, then the universities would favor them. The key here is to realize that phrases like "I hate how little we value education" show a misplaced sense of injustice.

How is it misplaced when, as a future consumer, I plan to spend upwards of $75k a year to send each of my kids to college and I see their professors being paid as little as $3-5k per course? That discrepancy doesn't seem completely NUTS to you?

The market sets how much you pay for that education, and how much the professor gets paid for providing that education. If you don't think the university is worth $75k a year, you won't send your kids there, right? If the professor's labor is worth more than $3-5k per course, the university would pay more than that, right? How much is a gallon of water worth to you right now? I agree that our education system is wasteful and has incorrect priorities, I STRONGLY agree with this observation. However, this did not arise out of lack value placed on education. Similarly, the fact that bottle water sells for more than gasoline yet costs so little at the source isn't because of how little we value water.

NP. I read that PP's point was that it's clear we don't value education as a society because that money is not going to professors. It's going to the "brand." It's not the education that matters to people, it's the name on the diploma, similar to the name on a pair of jeans or the logo on a car.

exactly. those 75k/year you will be paying pays for a trustworthy Xth tier label that says "i am smarter and more interesting than those wearing label from X+1, ... n tier college".

it has almost nothing to do with who teaches what and even what is being taught, much less learned. knowledge has never been so free and plentiful; one can learn almost everything on his own.

I know three tenured professors, all brilliant, all extraordinary personalities, all tenured at R1/Ivys. They make decent salaries, but getting tenure was SLOW and HARD and a financial struggle. I made more than any of them did as a nonprofit/govt lawyer than they did for many eyars. They also work harder than anyone I know. They do have awesome lives and lifestyles (now that they have tenure) but they got it honestly. Also let me repeat that they are truly extraordinary people who are not only brilliant in their fields, but also interpersonally brilliant. Based on this, I think academia is extremely difficult.

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Anonymous wrote:DH was a tenure track prof at AU 7 years ago - pay was less than a public school teacher and the benefits were way worse. We had to pay hundreds of dollars a month each for our kids health insurance - basically the full cost it was insane. They added ' partner benefits' but what benefits? Basically you have to have another job to survive in this area - write a textbook for freshman classes (high yield to make a lot of money, but not scholarly work), deliver newspapers- something. Marry rich?

Professors delivering newspapers on the side? That is sad I hate how little we value education in this country.

We value education, just like we also value water. But the value of a product/service is dependent on supply and demand. There is no shortage of well educated people who wants to stay in school and teach/research rather than move on to a career in the world. The reality of this is great: it will drive more such people to seek jobs elsewhere. It also allows the schools to be highly selective in who they accept to teach, improving both productivity and standard of teaching.

I don't know how true this is. It seems that universities have figured out they can save money by hiring more adjuncts and paying them a pittance (3-5k a course, no benefits) then tenure track professors who are paid at least a MC salary 70k + and benefits.

At the same time, tuition has been sky rocketing due to great salaries paid to administrators (who do...what exactly? push paper around). That is not valuing education.

Well, if an adjunct professor delivers education quality that meets the standards of the university, then what additional value do tenure-track professors bring? A separate question, is the skyrocketing tuition and admin salaries - yes we all should be outraged that colleges and universities are no longer mainly focused on education. Go visit any big state school - it's run like a luxury resort, with new buildings, new equipment, lavish facilities and landscaping. This is the direct result of easy student loans. I was in college back in the 90s - twenty years later, I don't even recognize the school from campus pictures anymore. I never dreamed of going to a out-of-state school unless I got merit scholarship - I was a pretty horrid student so in-state was pretty much my only choice. Most of my fellow classmates either worked their way through, got help from parents, or a combination thereof. The financial aid office was a small part of the admin building back then.

Tenure track professors bring grant money. They don't teach very many classes per semester. Unless it's at a teaching college (less desirable for many but not all), a tenure track professor isn't really hired for their teaching.

The adjunct-vs-tenured discussion was surrounding the topic of teaching. Again, if the economic benefit of tenured professor justifies their higher compensation, then the universities would favor them. The key here is to realize that phrases like "I hate how little we value education" show a misplaced sense of injustice.

How is it misplaced when, as a future consumer, I plan to spend upwards of $75k a year to send each of my kids to college and I see their professors being paid as little as $3-5k per course? That discrepancy doesn't seem completely NUTS to you?

The market sets how much you pay for that education, and how much the professor gets paid for providing that education. If you don't think the university is worth $75k a year, you won't send your kids there, right? If the professor's labor is worth more than $3-5k per course, the university would pay more than that, right? How much is a gallon of water worth to you right now? I agree that our education system is wasteful and has incorrect priorities, I STRONGLY agree with this observation. However, this did not arise out of lack value placed on education. Similarly, the fact that bottle water sells for more than gasoline yet costs so little at the source isn't because of how little we value water.

NP. I read that PP's point was that it's clear we don't value education as a society because that money is not going to professors. It's going to the "brand." It's not the education that matters to people, it's the name on the diploma, similar to the name on a pair of jeans or the logo on a car.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a tenured prof in the humanities in the DC area, and I make close to $100K. The benefits are autonomy (in terms of research and how I spend my time outside of the classroom), excellent work environment, and of course, life-time employment. I also benefit from a college tuition exchange program and free tuition for my children at my university. Social benefits include being the only non-lawyer at many parties in DC . I pay for our family's health insurance, which isn't cheap, but still cheaper than my spouse's. Fortunately, DH is in a much more lucrative field, but less stable, so it works out.

I have a tenured professor friend on the east coast. He confided in me that his pay wasn't very grand, something like $150k a year, but his wife is in finance and brings home major bank. He as a lot of opportunities to travel for conferences, board meetings, and etc. His social media page is filled with travel pictures all over the Americas and Europe. Every other week, he is having a 10 course meal with a nice bottle of wine somewhere exotic. He has more culture than all of my other friends combined. He is the smartest man I know from a raw intelligence point of view. He is also the smartest man I know from a life-enjoyment point of view.

He is smart because he married rich.

this. I don't know what the PP thinks this guy's example shows beyond that anyone can have a passion job and still have a luxurious lifestyle if they marry rich.

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Anonymous wrote:For 3 years (2014-16) I was a social sciences Asst. Prof. with administrative duties, 12 month contract at a VA state U: $75k.

Most of the tenure-track 9-mo. Asst. Profs were more like $45-60k.

I actually took a $20k paycut to move from a non-profit, but got a lot of autonomy, a ton of time off, decent benefits, and good experience.

When my salary didn't raise a penny during that time, and in fact essentially decreased because of increased costs for parking, insurance, etc., it was pretty discouraging. I was used to 5-12% raises and occasional bonuses in my non-profit work.

It was also just about impossible to get anything done in state government. Archaic HR laws, a constantly changing senior leadership, and constant budget cuts pretty much encouraged anyone innovative to move on quickly, leaving a bunch of disheartened or passive-aggressive people behind.

It's a shame, too, because it was my dream job on paper.

I've taken (yet another) paycut to move back into non-profit work, in a slightly different role than before, and am so glad (despite the decreased pay).

Sounds to me like they have options. I don't know what VA university you worked at, but Virginia Tech spent $21Mil just so that the football team can practice indoors during inclement weather:

http://facilities.vt.edu/planning-construction/campus-construction-projects/recently-completed-projects/indoor-athletic-training-facility.html

$21M is small compared to the other products they recently completed, but it shows you just how much money they have to play with, to the point that they would build a structure of this magnitude just so the football players can get out of the rain/snow.

This is ridiculous.

Maybe, but you clearly don't understand how state u budgeting works. Very little of the funding is state appropriations. Some of it is tuition. MOST of it is donors / fundraising / grants, etc. If the English department could do some stellar fundraising, they could get a $21 million building, too. Just happens that athletics is one of the easiest areas to fund (ticket sales, gear, merchandise, big name donors).

Anonymous wrote:DH is tenure track (but not yet tenured) in the sciences. He's makes $100k though it was a hard slog to get there and he made <50K until well into his 30s.

I also am in a relatively low-paying job, and am currently reluctantly job searching to find something that pays more (which mean less flexibility and less time with our kids). We have a good life, but paying for things like a biweekly cleaner and music lessons is a stretch, and we stopped at 2 children because we couldn't afford a third.

Pretty much all the academic couples I know are dual-earner households. You're not going to be driving a volvo unless the non-academic spouse is a much higher earner.

Wow. That seems a genuinely low salary for someone with a PhD in the sciences. (Forgive me as I'm not in academia but just lurking on this thread. I was never smart enough for a PhD -- especially in the sciences, and went to law school and now make a great salary in corporate America.)

It seems like someone with a PhD in the sciences must be brilliant and therefore could get a job in a big tech firm of some kind?

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Anonymous wrote:I am the PP in that thread whose uncle was given a subsidized apartment in Morningside Heights as part of his compensation package from Columbia. Huge apartment. Do universities still subsidize housing like that? I feel like that apartment would sell for at least 3 million today and probably much more. It was huge with 4 bedrooms (one was a small maid's room), an eat in kitchen, and a dining room.

That would be a great benefit. Maybe the thing to look for is not the salary (never high) but look into the benefits. Some still give tuition breaks for your kids even (though who knows if kids would get in even).

subsidized doesn't mean free. the housing in those apartments can still be many thousands of dollars per month, even at subsidized prices.

nah, it's very affordable. it's also scaled to an individual's income.

how sure are you of this? i was paying maybe 60% of the market price as a phd student.

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Anonymous wrote:I am the PP in that thread whose uncle was given a subsidized apartment in Morningside Heights as part of his compensation package from Columbia. Huge apartment. Do universities still subsidize housing like that? I feel like that apartment would sell for at least 3 million today and probably much more. It was huge with 4 bedrooms (one was a small maid's room), an eat in kitchen, and a dining room.

That would be a great benefit. Maybe the thing to look for is not the salary (never high) but look into the benefits. Some still give tuition breaks for your kids even (though who knows if kids would get in even).

subsidized doesn't mean free. the housing in those apartments can still be many thousands of dollars per month, even at subsidized prices.

nah, it's very affordable. it's also scaled to an individual's income.

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Anonymous wrote:There are so many colleges, law schools, etc. in small college towns with excellent cost of living. My DH is a law professor and we live in one of these. We can afford to live how we want to live -- private school, international trips, sabbaticals abroad, etc. I can afford a housecleaner if I wanted but I prefer to clean my own house and mow my own grass. Then I can use that money to travel. We specifically chose this place over Georgetown because I felt I'd be stuck working in biglaw forever to give our kids the same opporutnities in DC. No regrets! The prof friends who stayed in big cities are the only ones who complain about compensation (adjuncting is a different story....people do that because they want to have the resume line, not to make money. They'd make more as a barista[u]).

There are MANY MANY adjuncts who are stuck there because they want to work in their field and can't get a more stable position. It's a shame to put so many people on an academic track and then deny them the opportunity to make a living at it.

Listen to yourself, no one is denying anyone anything. It was THEIR choice to go into academic track, no one forced them into it. As with everyone else picking out a trade to practice, they picked out what they wanted to do, and must accept what the market determines as the value of their contribution. No one owes them anything.

this is partly true. yes it was their choice, but young people might not be aware of what that choice really means, and also, circumstances can change for the worse during the training. even at this topic, where people are supposedly informed, someone stated that professors make 300k without acknowledging the odds of getting such a position. very few people are aware of the realities of the academic market, and a vast majority of them are those who already have phds and have failed to land a good position. very few undergrads or their parents and even professors understand what the market is like.

when i entered phd program, it was still possible to go straight to TT after getting a phd. a decade later, it takes two or more postdocs to be competitive.

if you don't see the wast that is the academic system you are an idiot. the fact of the matter is that top schools could staff most of their departments with people who would pay to work. that's right, if you advertised harvard professorship that only has zero salary but where you need to pay, say, 50k a year to teach, you will still get many dozens of applicants for each position.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the PP in that thread whose uncle was given a subsidized apartment in Morningside Heights as part of his compensation package from Columbia. Huge apartment. Do universities still subsidize housing like that? I feel like that apartment would sell for at least 3 million today and probably much more. It was huge with 4 bedrooms (one was a small maid's room), an eat in kitchen, and a dining room.

That would be a great benefit. Maybe the thing to look for is not the salary (never high) but look into the benefits. Some still give tuition breaks for your kids even (though who knows if kids would get in even).

subsidized doesn't mean free. the housing in those apartments can still be many thousands of dollars per month, even at subsidized prices.

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Anonymous wrote:There are so many colleges, law schools, etc. in small college towns with excellent cost of living. My DH is a law professor and we live in one of these. We can afford to live how we want to live -- private school, international trips, sabbaticals abroad, etc. I can afford a housecleaner if I wanted but I prefer to clean my own house and mow my own grass. Then I can use that money to travel. We specifically chose this place over Georgetown because I felt I'd be stuck working in biglaw forever to give our kids the same opporutnities in DC. No regrets! The prof friends who stayed in big cities are the only ones who complain about compensation (adjuncting is a different story....people do that because they want to have the resume line, not to make money. They'd make more as a barista[u]).

There are MANY MANY adjuncts who are stuck there because they want to work in their field and can't get a more stable position. It's a shame to put so many people on an academic track and then deny them the opportunity to make a living at it.

This is very true for humanities adjuncts. I know a few cobbling together courses at a few places to survive. It is much less true for law -- most adjuncts are practicing attorneys who specialize in the areas where they adjunct, who enjoy being able to say "I teach this at (good school my DH works for)." They have no delusions they will ever be tenure track.

Anonymous wrote:DH is tenure track (but not yet tenured) in the sciences. He's makes $100k though it was a hard slog to get there and he made <50K until well into his 30s.

I also am in a relatively low-paying job, and am currently reluctantly job searching to find something that pays more (which mean less flexibility and less time with our kids). We have a good life, but paying for things like a biweekly cleaner and music lessons is a stretch, and we stopped at 2 children because we couldn't afford a third.

Pretty much all the academic couples I know are dual-earner households. You're not going to be driving a volvo unless the non-academic spouse is a much higher earner.

This is close to us, but part of his salary is "summer salary" that he has to find for himself through grants, consulting, etc. I work part-time in non-profit. We have pretty much the median household income for the DC area (which in 2015 was $109k).

It really depends on field, type of school, how famous you are, etc.