How plausible is it to become a college professor?

[bluemagic]

Originally Posted by FidelCashflow

WTF? A professor at my university told us tenured professors were getting like $250K a year to start.

That is probably for business school, or maybe law school or engineering.

 

[edinatlanta]

Originally Posted by FidelCashflow

WTF? A professor at my university told us tenured professors were getting like $250K a year to start.

I'm pretty sure Alan Dershowitz gets less than that from Harvard (could be wrong though).

 

[Philosoph]

Originally Posted by FidelCashflow

WTF? A professor at my university told us tenured professors were getting like $250K a year to start.

WTF indeed.

Granted, the university I was referring to is not an old, well-known school on the East Coast, but still...

$250k sounds ludicrously high to me, unless that was including potential outside contracting or something. And I don't know about b-schools or law schools.

 

[bluemagic]

That figure is probably like the oft-quoted $160,000+ first-year investment banking salary. Sure, a few superstars probably made that much, but the vast majority made far less.

 

[Piobaire]

Originally Posted by EL72

I guess I should have been more specific in my comment that being a prof sucks but had to rush to class

Like anything else, it depends on who you are and what you want. Being a prof sucks for me but it can be a great gig for others.

Yes, the grass is always greener and I worked in the private sector after my undergrad and had had enough of the corporate environment when I decided to go to grad school (biggest mistake of my life btw). Academia is great if you enjoy pondering great questions and writing useless papers that a couple of dozen people at best will read and then pontificating to harried and ungrateful students who (rightly) only care about the grade they get in class. If you are driven and ambitious, you will likely feel stifled in academia.

It's such a wasteful exercise and I think we are at a point where we need to seriously overhaul our higher education system. I know tenure is designed to protect the intellectual freedom of university professors (and society's by extension) but the system is so inefficient that we cannot sustain it anymore. I've never felt as useless and unproductive to society as I have as a professor. FTR, I was in a tenure-track position and did not incur massive debt during grad studies. I just hate the job and the environment.

EL, thanks for a most thoughtful, and enlightening reply. I see you were/are in the same boat as my acquaintances in academia, and did not incur massive debt, as has been postulated here. I agree about the inefficient nature of the system, and think it could use a revamp. There certainly is much misinformation going around.

And I have to say, 250k to start? Yeah, that's not happening. Here are some stats done by AAUP. Pretty much on track with my thinking of where the numbers are. http://chronicle.com/stats/aaup/rati...atingscale.htm

In a doctoral granting institution, a full prof at the 20th percentile earns 98k and at the 95th percentile, 161k.

 

[Philosoph]

Maybe. I actually did some digging on this topic a year ago, and found a resource that listed the mean, median, lowest, and highest salary for professors at every university in America. Don't remember where it was. I don't recall seeing $250k anywhere, and that probably would have stuck in my mind.

 

[eqpablon]

Originally Posted by Piobaire

EL, thanks for a most thoughtful, and enlightening reply. I see you were/are in the same boat as my acquaintances in academia, and did not incur massive debt, as has been postulated here. I agree about the inefficient nature of the system, and think it could use a revamp. There certainly is much misinformation going around.

And I have to say, 250k to start? Yeah, that's not happening. Here are some stats done by AAUP. Pretty much on track with my thinking of where the numbers are. http://chronicle.com/stats/aaup/rati...atingscale.htm

In a doctoral granting institution, a full prof at the 20th percentile earns 98k and at the 95th percentile, 161k.


I'd like to see their methodology. My ex graduated with a Ph.D in ECSE from the best ECSE program in the nation. She was lucky to get hired on at UTA. She is paid roughly 45K a year, of course she is only an assistant professor. The Big 12 publishes salary info for Assistant Professors/Professors every year. All of them earn less than the 20th percentile in your linked study. These are R1 schools, with massive research/hiring budgets; which often pay more than private universities.

What throws the numbers up are the B School, Eng School, Law School, and Med School professors. Those guys do make 100K+, the other professors do not. I have several friends that are doctoral candidates here at KU, and a few acquaintances that are faculty members (professors/assistant professors). They are all very honest about their income. None of them chose the field for the pay, it's what they are passionate about. FYI the Assistant Prof's are making less than 50K and the Professors are making 80kish. As an Army meat head I take home more than they do, have better benefits, more time off, etc etc.

Keep in mind the OP was looking for info on the Humanities, not Law Professors, Eng Professors, etc. Those jobs are incredibly difficult to secure, and the pay is not great.

 

[Piobaire]

Originally Posted by eqpablon

I'd like to see their methodology. My ex graduated with a Ph.D in ECSE from the best ECSE program in the nation. She was lucky to get hired on at UTA. She is paid roughly 45K a year, of course she is only an assistant professor. The Big 12 publishes salary info for Assistant Professors/Professors every year. All of them earn less than the 20th percentile in your linked study. These are R1 schools, with massive research/hiring budgets; which often pay more than private universities. What throws the numbers up are the B School, Eng School, Law School, and Med School professors. Those guys do make 100K+, the other professors do not. I have several friends that are doctoral candidates here at KU, and a few acquaintances that are faculty members (professors/assistant professors). They are all very honest about their income. None of them chose the field for the pay, it's what they are passionate about. FYI the Assistant Prof's are making less than 50K and the Professors are making 80kish. As an Army meat head I take home more than they do, have better benefits, more time off, etc etc. Keep in mind the OP was looking for info on the Humanities, not Law Professors, Eng Professors, etc. Those jobs are incredibly difficult to secure, and the pay is not great.
Study states it excludes Medical School professors, and it was conducted by the AAUP (American Association of University Professors. You have to figure that those chaps might be able to crank out a fairly valid report. If not, all you all F***ers are getting paid too much!

 

[username79]

I'm related to a college prof (Humanities) at a small ivy.

She's been tenured for twenty five years. She went there straight out of grad school.

Corner office, full professor, six figure salary, tons of free time (the entire summer for one thing), extremely flexible work schedule. She teaches two of three classes a week and then pretty much does whatever she wants.

Extremely good job, but I don't think anyone gets jobs like that anymore.

 

[otc]

poi: in some of your comments re wages still being higher than average, I think you are discounting the education levels too much. A better comparison would be average salaries of people with phd's or ideally the best offer an individual professor could get in the private sector.

There is definitely balancing based on field that is done as well. English professors do not get paid a ton because they wouldn't be able to easily make a ton outside of academia (add to that the security of tenure and you don't have to pay them much). Economics/Law/Business professors get paid a lot more to start with based on the fact that they could easily hop into a job far beneath their talents and still get paid more than the English professor.

As to the hours, with tenure...it is up to you. Obviously you cannot just stop working but once you reach tenure it is possible to take it easy a little (or at least offload some work). If you are intensely in need of grants, this may not be the case since you will have to work for those. The University takes a risk when it grants tenure that you may go crazy or stop putting out much volume of work...that is part of why the process is so rigorous and takes so long. While there often are the old professors who have lost it and barely do any real work, the rigor of the tenure track ensures that most who make it through have a work ethic that is going to keep on trucking (maybe they are in it for more than just a job...gotta publish that famous paper or something).

I personally like the tenure system at universities (not quite so much at public high schools). I understand the arguments against it and I feel that in the end they are outweighed by the positives. That being said, there ARE many arguments against tenure systems and there is a small chance they may go away. Economists keep putting forth lots of incentive based arguments and universities keep adding a lot of non-tenure positions...

 

[Mauby]

Jobs are scarce, but they'll be opening up a bit more the next few years, as I've heard there is going to be quite of few professors retiring. Then again, competition for those positions are going to be cutthroat. Just know, that as a university professor (not instructor or lector) you're going to be expected to do a ton of writing, and having your books published.

 

[philosophe]

Originally Posted by Mauby

Jobs are scarce, but they'll be opening up a bit more the next few years, as I've heard there is going to be quite of few professors retiring. Then again, competition for those positions are going to be cutthroat. Just know, that as a university professor (not instructor or lector) you're going to be expected to do a ton of writing, and having your books published.

Before the financial crisis, this line of thinking was heard in some quarters. That's over now. To boot, as a previous poster noted, retiring senior faculty are not all being replaced by tenure-track or senior (!) faculty. The last figure I heard was that only one of three positions is filled by a tenure-stream professor; two of three are replaced with adjunct or other non-tenure stream lines.

There is, btw, research showing that undergraduate students do better more when taught by full-time faculty rather than adjuncts. This shouldn't be a big surprise. Adjuncts are paid poorly and often teach 4-8 courses all over town. Under that scenario, who could have enough time to meet with students, grade rigorously, etc? Note also that adjuncts are under enormous pressure to get good course evaluations. Most administrators deny that there is a relation between easy grading and student course evaluations, but anyone who teaches knows that there is a correlation. Obviously, some adjuncts bring highly specialized experience to the classroom, but most adjuncts teach service courses.

 

[rdawson808]

I'll throw in my two cents' worth for the OP too. And maybe try to add to some of the other discussion. I'm a former assistant professor of economics and environmental studies at a small liberal arts East Coast school. I now work for fhe federal gov't.

The job basics: There are three main tasks your job requires: teaching, research, and service to the college. The first two are obvious, service means sitting on committees, advising students, showing up at parents' weekend, etc. The fourth requirement is "collegiality," which will not be in any contract you sign, nor in any faculty handbook. I'll talk about that last. This work takes place year-round. You don't get summers off, though your schedule is more flexible.

The different places you could work
Liberal Arts college (not to be confused with what you termed "liberal arts" fields): generally speaking you teach a 3-3 or 4-4 load, meaning you teach 3 or 4 classes per semester. There are TAs to help you. That's your primary job at most liberal arts colleges. At highly rated ones, your research expectations will be much higher. Believe it or not there are liberal arts profs who teach a full load and do amazing research too. (And they advise, mentor, etc.)

Research universities (both small and large, regional and state): you teach much less but have a much heavier research requirement. Your research requirement might be very well defined (X number of articles in the following journals per year; or a book and Y number of articles; Z number of conference presentations, etc.). Your work balance ultimately depends on the specific job. If your title is "research professor," well, you can figure out what you'll do.

Pay
Liberal arts colleges tend to lean towards pay parity. That is, all starting faculty make roughly the same, relative to the huge differences in salaries you will see at a research/state school. So for instance, friends of mine in foreign languages were thrilled with their paychecks and their advisors back at their PhD programs were happy for them and jealous at the same time. It is possible to start as an assistant professor in english at a large state school and make $20k a year. At a small (private) liberal arts school you'd make more like $40k. At the same time, an econ. prof. would make $75k at a large state school and only 45-50 at the liberal arts college. (These numbers are relative, just for illustrative purposes).

This assumes you are a tenure-track professor. If you are a temporary visiting prof. you will get paid less (in my experience it was about $10k less). If you are hired as an adjunct, you could get paid as little as $3k per class you teach, and get no benefits.

Job Prospects
The Humanities are overrun with PhDs. As others have said, you're chances of getting an academic position are slim to none. These days, it's not much better in other fields. Just yesterday I was going through the job listings for economists listed at the AEA. There were a number of searches that had been cancelled or suspended. These seemed to be mostly at the state schools. I would guess there were even more since most places aren't good about updating their listing or keeping job applicants informed.

Grad School versus Being a Professor
Nothing alike. You ******** around for years in grad school and basically take your time to finish. Especially if you're on your own dime. But that doesn't work once you have the job. If you're performing up to par by year three, they'll let you go.

My experience
I went into academia so I could teach. My ideal job probably doesn't exist anymore: quiet liberal arts campus where I teach my course load, advise students, hang out, drink sherry with parents, be a mentor and really have a positive effect on my students. That probably hasn't existed for 50 years. My pay was okay. Not great, but I survived. I now have a federal job that by next year will be a doubling of my pay from when I left academia 2.5 years ago. I also have better benefits. My wife could have found employment there too but at about half her current salary (same job).

I left my job by mutual consent, as it were. They told me they weren't going to renew my contract. The stated sticking point: research. I didn't do enough. Oddly though, I did as much as some of my colleagues, in terms of finishing it up or number of published articles. The unstated reason was that someone didn't like me. I think it was my next more senior colleague in my dept. I didn't much care for her most of the time either, but I tried very hard to be a good colleague. I won't go into speculations about what happened. Suffice it to say that I performed the same as many of my colleagues but it was made clear that someone more senior than me was unhappy with me. And there was never an explanation of what I had done wrong other than this.

Also consider that by the time you hit the tenure decision year (usually six years into the job), you are easily into your 30s and have spent a good chunk of your life aiming at this one end. What happens if you don't get tenure. Heaven help you if you're a woman (or husband of one) who put off having children in order to help your tenure case. You could find yourself 35 years old with no kids and no tenure.

My advice: don't do it. Especially not in the humanities.

b

 

[rdawson808]

I forgot this: in terms of comparable wages, remember there are few comparable jobs in the private sector or gov't, that require a PhD in the humanities. Being a college prof. requires one. Being a book editor does not.

So you cannot compare salaries so easily. Not for the humanities. Economists and engineers, that's a different matter.

And only the superstars make the really big salaries.

b

 

[Dewey]

^ Those Chronicle averages include professors of law, medicine, business, and technology, where pay scales are very different than in the fields of interest to the OP. The numbers are also skewed by the salaries of 60-something professors in jobs that will cease to exist when they retire. Finally, they fail to convey how rare are the jobs at Ph.D.-granting institutions (there are not so many Departments that grant the Ph.D.). Bottom line is they exaggerate the earning potential for people considering the career. Philosophy professors do not make 100K.