Friday, April 17, 2009
Faculty Pay Rate
For years it has been astonishing to hear quotes on how much seemingly knowledgeable and well-deserving professors are paid for their services. These are the people responsible for educating the workers of the future, preparing today's young generation to advance into the working world and earn a living so that their children can be educated and prepared in the same way. Teachers put in long hours and work hard, yet at all levels of education appear to be drastically undercompensated for their efforts. There are of course anomalies and professors that do extraordinarily well, and unfortunately these salaries are what is most commonly known about. As said in Robin Wilson's article "College to Pricey? Don't Blame Faculty Pay," "People hear of a few very high salaries because that's very newsworthy," says Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors. "There aren't so many of those well-off professors as people think." Professors are commonly found with a terminal degree in their field of study, which includes prestigious accolades such as Ph.D.s and Master's degrees. Yet despite this high concentration of education and achievement, people with professional degrees in other fields are making much more than teachers. The question is why is there such a disparity in entry level salaries and room for career growth amongst those with professional degrees in education versus those with professional degrees in other fields?
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I think that reading the article "College too Pricey? Don't Blame Faculty Pay" was extremely interesting, because it reflects the mistaken view that I used to hold myself: that college is becoming more and more expensive and that rising faculty pay must be the reason for this. In reality however, we have seen that this is not the case at all. A college education is indeed getting becoming costlier and more unaffordable every year, but this is mainly because of reduced levels of federal and state funding, expenditures by colleges on institutional developments unrelated to the actual education of students, and a variety of other factors. While it is true that a small number of faculty members make a disproportionally large salary, it is also true that many, if not most, faculty members make a disproportionally small salary. Universities are hiring more and more low paid part-time adjuncts in order to cut costs and make themselves more "efficient" with their use of money. While this may be a good thing for a business, I think it is important to remember that however much some people want schools to be run like businesses, schools cannot be effective in their main goal, teaching, if efficiency is their greatest concern. Hiring part-timers is cost effective for the school, but in the short run and in the long run it is detrimental to everyone else. Highly educated and intelligent people are forced to take jobs that pay at a level that is unfairly and unacceptably low, just because most of them have nowhere else to go (this of course applies mainly to those who have degrees in the humanities, not a small number of graduates however). Meanwhile, students are being educated by greater numbers of instructors who don't have a serious affiliation with the university and who don't have the time and energy to provide students with the quality education that they paid for. The result: everybody suffers. Corporations and school administrators may be pushing very hard for a "leaner" university structure, but in the end it is going to come back to hurt themselves. Lowering standards to save money may seem a good idea now, but if it results in students who are less capable, students who themselves will be running corporations and schools in the future, then where are we really saving here? It is a quick and harmful solution to a much larger and more extensive problem.
ReplyDeleteThe university is becoming more and more like a business and while it is working now, the corporation that they have built is going to fail. Christian makes a good point when he says that failing to provide for the students is only hurting themselves because they are depriving students the education that they require. For the most part, the government is to blame for the issues that we are all having with the system. With the cuts in funding for public education, the teaching faculty is suffering. The adjuncts that are hired are not paid the salary they should be paid and are therefore forced to keep looking for better offers from other institutions. This constant reformation of the staff is not helpful to the learning environment or to the students. The temporary fix that universities have implemented is eventually going to backfire. The government needs to step in now to help correct the lack of funding to these schools so that they may keep more permanent professors.
ReplyDeleteI also did have the view that pay was high for professors at universities since most of them had Ph.D's, which required thousands of dollars and several years to complete. It seems to me that faculty pay is low mostly depending on supply and the profitability of the field where the professor is in. For example, an "average" professor with a Ph.D in history will probably publish articles and books while working (tenured or not tenured) in the university. He or she might make decent money but it is nowhere near as high as some believe. On the other hand some business professors, especially in finance, will also publish books and articles like the history professor but his or her salary will be nowhere as near as the history professor's salary. The opportunity cost of a highly educated finance professor is extremely high; he or she could make hundreds of thousands of dollars in the "real world". In order to attract professors in this field, universities have to pay them enough so that they will be allured to come to the university and teach. The history professor is probably only or mostly employable by a university, so his opportunity cost of working in another place is slow. His or her pay will also reflect this. The supply of professors in a certain field also determine how much the faculty is paid.
ReplyDeleteNot only are teachers underpaid at the college level, but across the board. As Marcus wrote, teaching is one of the most important jobs, teachers work hard and put in long hours yet they are grossly underpaid. I don't know what it will take for the government to realize that the education system, from elementary to higher education, needs to be completely reformed. Now is the time to put forth the money to create better schools, hire better teachers for a higher salary, and make sure that children and adults are getting the education they need for the future.
ReplyDeleteDaniel mentioned that history professors are "probably only or mostly employable by a university." This is true if one wants to be a professor in the sense that one wants to teach one's own independent syllabi, research and publish, perform service to the academic community through committee work, and earn tenure. However, one dangerous misconception held by far too many graduate students and professors is that someone who holds a graduate degree in the humanities is not employable elsewhere: for instance, a person who possesses a Ph.D. (and often an M.A.) can teach at private schools or public schools (the latter institutions certainly are in need of stronger teachers!), they can work as public historians or historic preservationists, they can work in museums, they can work for non-profits, etc. Although these kinds of jobs do not afford as much opportunity to pursue research and publication agendas and/or may not include traditional classroom teaching, there are many options, actually. Unfortunately, academia often tends to obscure those opportunities from those who inhabit the ivory tower, which leads to oversupply in the academic job market and adjunct nation.
ReplyDeleteI think Wilson may be right: when we discussed how we define "faculty" last week, we didn't necessarily discuss salary, but to those who aren't in the know, the "superstar academics" (those very few who gain notoriety as scholars even beyond the walls of the university--because they get involved in political debates, appear on 24-hour news networks commenting on some current issue, or write books for more general audiences, for instance) are often perceived as the "average" profile of a professor. We all now know that such a stereotype is what all stereotypes are: merely a generalization. After all, as Nelson and Watt point out, many tenure-track professors at regional colleges in the South make a mere $20K a year while teaching four courses a term, and their names certainly aren't glamorized (or reviled) in the news!
Turnover is certainly a problem in all levels of academia, as Paige mentions, and the consequences of the casualization of faculty are tremendous. Changes in governmental support of higher education is necessary and perhaps can help to improve working conditions for faculty (and thus educational opportunities for students), but what else can be done if the government does not step up--or if it does, and it's not enough?