Pharyngula

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | July 28, 2010 2:02 PM

Contemporary conservatism is a personality disorder.

Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 28, 2010 2:08 PM

Too bad there wasn't an easy way to insert "citation needed" into a radio program...

Posted by: CJO | July 28, 2010 2:09 PM

Sheesh. I was raised by college professors, and, yeah, "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" it was not. A perfectly comfortable middle-class existence, to be sure, but millionaires? It's stupid too, since the payroll information of public universities is, like, publicly available.

But you hear this kind of cultural resentment all the time. The Liberal Elite and what have you. Strikes me as "No fair, knowing stuff! And... and... thinking about things, can you imagine? Where do those pointy-headed perfessers get off?"

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | July 28, 2010 2:12 PM

Millionaire professors. Good laugh. Maybe the university Presidents, but not the rank and file professors. Reality has a liberal bias, as conservatives live in their fantasy world.

Posted by: sabend | July 28, 2010 2:15 PM

A year and a half ago, I checked the salaries for professors at a prestigious, high-tuition, private university. My source was the Chronicle of Higher Education. Most professors were not breaking six digit salaries. And again, this is a private institution that charges people a ton of money for tuition.

If you want to be a millionaire scientist, you go into industry, not academia ...

Posted by: raven | July 28, 2010 2:19 PM

What a moron. Just lies.

Needless to say, while science professors and scientists in general don't get paid all that well, they do useful things.

Like creating modern Hi Tech 21st century Western civilization and making the USA a world leader.

The babbling right wing goon's main contribution to the world is using up oxygen that would be of better use keeping a cow breathing.

Posted by: Zeno | July 28, 2010 2:22 PM

raven: would be of better use keeping a cow breathing

Another vote from me for cows!

Posted by: gussnarp | July 28, 2010 2:22 PM

Tenured full professors can do alright, but millionaires? What is he smoking? And many of those protesting professors are not full professors, they are associate or assistant professors, or even adjunct professors. And since universities are shifting as much of the load to adjuncts and grad students who get paid jack squat to avoid hiring full time faculty, there are probably a lot of adjuncts there.

Posted by: Ben Goren | July 28, 2010 2:25 PM

At least at Arizona State University, and I assume at all other publicly-funded institutions of higher education, employee pay rates are a matter of public record.

And, with one or two exceptions, the last time I looked (decades ago), all the faculty at the ASU School of Music were solidly in the middle class. The exceptions got at most half again as much as the average faculty salary.

It’s embarrassing, really. This year I’ll probably gross more than the professor I studied with, and he was at the upper end of the scale. (Include his benefits and he probably comes out ahead.) And I’m doing less important work that’s far less interesting in a completely unrelated field — and he’s got far better academic and professional qualifications than I.

The only wealthy faculty I’ve known (including my professor) had family or inherited wealth. And even then, they’ve all remained firmly in the middle class; they’re just at the upper end of it.

I have some (extremely loose, more-than-arm’s-length) connections to some people in the upper class. It’s a whole different world. These people collect quarter-million-dollar cars like a mere mortal might collect beer bottles. Blowing hundreds of dollars on dinner for two registers on their consciousness like grabbing a value meal at the drive-through to the rest of the world.

Cheers,

b&

Posted by: Erulóra (formerly KOPD) | July 28, 2010 2:29 PM

You professors and your cushy jobs, making in a year what a professional athlete makes in an entire week.

Posted by: Rog | July 28, 2010 2:35 PM

Sounds to me like Sussman's entire view of academia is based on having seen the movie "Back to School" once or twice.

Posted by: daveau | July 28, 2010 2:38 PM

Since when is right-wing rhetoric rational?

You don't need the money. You already have an enviable lifestyle and the world's most famous Trophy Wife^TM.

I've been on a pay freeze, then a cut for a year and a half. The spousal unit, who works for the University of Illinois at Chicago (an academic professional), has effectively had a pay freeze for a couple of years, combined this year with unpaid furlough days. I'm just glad to have a job, but I feel like a sheep when I admit that.

Posted by: PhillipR | July 28, 2010 2:40 PM

Anyone who did the math on a previous post from PZ about salary would know he's making less than $80k as a professor. That's solidly middle class, not millionaire. It was actually depressing to me, as a future educator, because I too thought that college professors made considerably more than secondary. Alas, I'll be teaching for the love, not the money - but still.

Posted by: ButchKitties | July 28, 2010 2:42 PM

Universities pay lots of their employees high-six-figure to million-dollar salaries.

These employees are called "basketball coaches" and "football coaches".

Posted by: Mattir-ritated | July 28, 2010 2:43 PM

@cervantes #24 - Even at a top law school, one is likely to make substantially less than one would at a private law firm. And in non-tenure-track positions, the pay is actually ludicrous (IIRC, $1200 for teaching a one-semester course, and this was at a top-20 American law school).

Posted by: oihorse | July 28, 2010 2:44 PM

@ButchKitties #27
Don't forget "Dean" and "President"

Posted by: Randy | July 28, 2010 2:46 PM

You professors and your cushy jobs, making in a year what a professional athlete makes in an entire week.

Or what the sports team owner makes in an entire hour.

We're veering off topic here, and I apologize, but if the owners seem to have very little problems making billions off of watching grown men play a child's game, (as well as selling ad space and overpriced, watered down beer) why do we fault the athletes, the one's actually playing the games, for getting a fair share of the revenue? It's not like if player salaries were to drop that the owners would lower ticket and concession prices.

Sorry, personal raw nerve of mine.

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | July 28, 2010 2:47 PM

Universities pay lots of their employees high-six-figure to million-dollar salaries.
These employees are called "basketball coaches" and "football coaches".

This.

I'm an alum of Iowa State. They just hired Fred Hoiberg as basketball coach for $800k. For some time, the ISU basketball coach, Tim Floyd, was the highest paid employee of the state of Iowa. That honor now goes to the University of Iowa football coach.

I believe the hockey coach here at UND is the highest paid employee of the state of North Dakota.

All of that, though, is untouchable.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine | July 28, 2010 2:48 PM

Wow...Just, wow! And yet, I'm seeing more and more of an anti-science attitude. Our country is bound and determined to find its way back to the dark ages--the age of faith.

Jeez, at least Rush needed heavy-duty pharmaceuticals to maintain his state of delusion. This guy--and Beck and Hannity, etc--they do it with their own inate stupidity. Hmm! Raises a question: Do you suppose that Rush's biography on Conservipedia has an asterisk by it?

Posted by: gussnarp | July 28, 2010 2:56 PM

There was an episode of King of the Hill once where Bobby finds his dad's paycheck, with a year end bonus in it, adds that amount every week for thirty years, and decides that they are millionaires. You would think that a guy who has his own income and pays his own bills wouldn't make that mistake....

Posted by: Dae | July 28, 2010 2:57 PM

This comic from Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD) comes to mind...

Posted by: magistermundisum | July 28, 2010 2:59 PM

I knew I was onto a good thing when I joined academia!
If only this cornucopia of wealth were more evident in professors....

Posted by: MartiniConQueso | July 28, 2010 3:03 PM

geek.flip @ #38 has it exactly right. I'm not an academic employee, but the *severance package* of a recently discharged-in-disgrace athletic official at my institution would have paid my salary and benefits for a number of years.

Posted by: gussnarp | July 28, 2010 3:06 PM

@oihorse - That article doesn't say much about my argument. I'm not going to look them all up, but at the big state schools on the list we have the University of Virginia:
President's salary: $773,648, down from $797,048
Football coach's salary: $1.7 million.

University of Maryland:
President's salary: $498,284, up from $463,213
Basketball coach's salary: $1.6 million guaranteed, up to $2.3 million.

So I guess it did say something about my argument, it made my point.

Posted by: Jolo5309 | July 28, 2010 3:07 PM

@Ben Goren

Anyway, if you’re a professional athlete and your name hasn’t appeared in an ESPN headline, it’s almost guaranteed that you’re doing it for the love of the sport exactly as much as PZ teaches for the love of education, or that a symphony musician plays for the love of music. It’s almost certainly not for the money.

Which is why I love the CFL (Canadian Football League) as most players making under 100K/year.

Posted by: alan b | July 28, 2010 3:13 PM

PZ, I happen to know how much your salary is because it is available online. YOU do not make a fantastic amount of money, you make a reasonable amount of money. But a lot of professors, particularly in engineering, and especially those with industry history and connections, make upwards of $200k/year. I'm sure there are plenty of examples at any of the California engineering schools. I don't know who this radio host was referring to (he probably doesn't know either), but there are definitely some professors that are paid very, very well.

Posted by: Arancaytar | July 28, 2010 3:19 PM

Congratulations on your unexpected wealth, PZ. It must be nice to be suddenly a millionaire!

Posted by: gussnarp | July 28, 2010 3:21 PM

@alan b - The fact that a handful of professors are paid "very, very well" does not change the fact that most aren't. Check the PhD comic linked to by Dae above, the chart uses real numbers and the average salary of a male tenured professor is about $95k. Less for non-tenured, and don't even think about adjunct faculty. Sussman was making a gross generalization that was completely inaccurate, and he was doing it expressly to heap scorn and contempt on academia.

Also, more than $200,000 a year does not necessarily make one a millionaire, especially if you live in the San Francisco area where housing costs are outrageous and tales of software developers making that much and still homeless are not unheard of.

Posted by: oihorse | July 28, 2010 3:25 PM

@gussnarp #47

Yes, you are correct, Coach's make exponentially more.

Those school Presidents aren't hurting... especially compared to the professors - which is my original point to Butchkitties' post.

Posted by: DaveH | July 28, 2010 3:28 PM

@alan b, #51

But a lot of professors, particularly in engineering, and especially those with industry history and connections, make upwards of $200k/year.

Emphasis mine

How much of that $200k/year is their salary as a professor, and how much is consulting fees, etc. for their old industry buddies? As has been previously stated in this thread, if you want to be rich with a PhD, you go into industry, not pure academia.

If most of their money is coming from industry sources, either directly or indirectly, that still kinda undermines the argument about students protesting about high fees, since those fees aren't funding the profs' salaries.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | July 28, 2010 3:29 PM

In fairness, they are making some pretty good money at Stanford.
And Berkely.

Not millionaires, but it ain't the U of Minn eiher.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | July 28, 2010 3:32 PM

^e

I know how to spll 'Berkeley'

Posted by: Form&Function | July 28, 2010 3:36 PM

This isn't the first time I've encountered this (IMHO bizarre) misconception. I have to suppose people are confusing the weight of authority that being a professor can grant with the salary they're able to command. Doctors, lawyers, professors... they're all well-educated professionals. They must make about the same amount, right?

Yeah, wrong.

When I was a post-doc, one of the grad students in the lab told us a story. His brother, a businessman if I recall, was chatting with him about his work, and the topic of salaries came up. I the grad student had complained about the pittance he was earning and his brother laughed and said "Yeah, but you're going to be a professor! What do they make, like half a mil a year?" Uh-huh. Sure. Go check the faculty parking lot for all those Porshes and BMWs.

Posted by: Ben Goren | July 28, 2010 3:42 PM

Sven, the San Francisco Bay Area is one of the most expensive places on the planet. The $150K that an average full professor earns at UCB might sound like an awful lot to somebody in “fly-over country,” but it’s just barely above that necessary to afford the mortgage on a house smaller than average for fly-over country.

And that $45K for instructors? They’ll be lucky to afford a two-bedroom apartment. Either that or they’re driving a hundred miles a day.

Cheers,

b&

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | July 28, 2010 3:46 PM

the San Francisco Bay Area is one of the most expensive places on the planet

Oh, I know. CoL makes a big difference (I once moved from LA to Bumfuck Oklahoma).

Still those numbers look pretty big from my vantage point, living in another of the most expensive areas in the country and not making anything like that.
'Course I'm not Stanford or Berkeley caliber either.

Posted by: gadow | July 28, 2010 3:56 PM

Reality has never been a concern for the hard right wing.

Posted by: kparker84 | July 28, 2010 4:08 PM

I'll just add to this discussion the curious case of Nancy Zimpher, the new chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY) system.

She is making $545,000 a year, $200,000 more a year than her predecessor, and all this at a time when the SUNY system is making cuts left and right (and raising tuition costs) because they are so broke.

As a student in this system, I think it's disgusting. Her and the people who appointed her should be ashamed of themselves.

Posted by: jay.sweet | July 28, 2010 4:17 PM

Wow, now that's a reality disconnect if I ever heard one.

Maybe he meant they all make millions of pennies per year?

Posted by: kparker84 | July 28, 2010 4:45 PM

I remember making a little over $40,000 the year I was in Iraq. It's the most I've ever made, and scaling it to how I live now (which is very comfortable), I could easily get by and have no money problems.

The idea of making several times that is unfathomable to me.

Posted by: Epikt | July 28, 2010 4:49 PM

Ben Goren:

it’s almost guaranteed that you’re doing it for the love of the sport exactly as much as PZ teaches for the love of education, or that a symphony musician plays for the love of music. It’s almost certainly not for the money.

Last time I looked, most or all of the top ten orchestras in the US had base salaries of $100k or more. Those aren't easy gigs to get, but the pay isn't bad if you can land one. Couple that with the fact that you typically work twentyish hours a wee,k which leaves you time for playing in chamber groups, private teaching, adjuncting or recording, and it's not a bad life.

Posted by: raven | July 28, 2010 4:58 PM

I remember making a little over $40,000 the year I was in Iraq. It's the most I've ever made, and scaling it to how I live now (which is very comfortable), I could easily get by and have no money problems.

The idea of making several times that is unfathomable to me.

Yes, as a single youngish adult that works OK.

Try being an older, married with two kids, a mortgage, and a retirment plan.

If the USA was all just single, young adults, we could instantly solve huge numbers of problems, especially medicare and social security. Of course, in the long run, well, after they all die there wouldn't be a long run.

Posted by: greg.bourke0 | July 28, 2010 5:07 PM

"than", don't post drunk.

Posted by: kparker84 | July 28, 2010 5:17 PM

@raven

Oh, absolutely. I definitely recognize that not having a family or little'ns to look after allows me to roll in my (small) piles of money. It's a good life, and I'll enjoy it while it lasts!

Posted by: sendittodevnull | July 28, 2010 5:20 PM

Please, someone ask tis idiot how much a right-wing talk radio host gets paid...then how much the university basketball coach gets paid. Then, get it on film when you show him a professor's paystub and he's scrabbling around looking for the extra zero. And people will soak this up because it gels with their prejudices and resentments. I quit academia the day I realised I'd make more working at Dairy Queen.

Posted by: ribidons | July 28, 2010 5:25 PM

@88
Elbow patches are the sign of someone who uses a desk as something more than a prop to intimidate visitors. They're the coveralls and toolbelts of people who think hard for their money.

Posted by: Erulóra (formerly KOPD) | July 28, 2010 5:37 PM

Wrong thread. dammit.

Posted by: frautech | July 28, 2010 5:57 PM

alan b-"But a lot of professors, particularly in engineering, and especially those with industry history and connections, make upwards of $200k/year. I'm sure there are plenty of examples at any of the California engineering schools."

I think a lot is an exaggeration. I go to a California school and study engineering. I also work full time and my pay compared to my coworkers is very crappy. They use every excuse in the book to keep paying me less, people with less experience and no education whatsoever make about $10-$20k a year more than me, with better educated obviously earning a lot more. So I looked up my professors. Two of my favorites, on the tenure track, both made less than me. The NIH standard post-doc pay is slightly less than what I make. Most of my professors made about $80k, about what an engineer with a BS only can expect to earn after 5ish years in the industry if they are not an idiot. That engineer five years after that will be making $100k+ while the professor will be making $82k. My long in the tooth, old/useless professors were the only ones consistently making upwards of 150k a year. I'm assuming back in the day, engineering professors got paid pretty well. Thanks to budget cuts and education as low priority, that's no longer the case. I suspect also a rash of students studying the "useless" (i mean that tongue in cheek) disciplines such as humanities or philosophy rather than engineering has also contributed.

"Posted by: raven | July 28, 2010 4:58 PM
[I remember making a little over $40,000 the year I was in Iraq. It's the most I've ever made, and scaling it to how I live now (which is very comfortable), I could easily get by and have no money problems.
The idea of making several times that is unfathomable to me.]
Yes, as a single youngish adult that works OK.
Try being an older, married with two kids, a mortgage, and a retirment plan.
If the USA was all just single, young adults, we could instantly solve huge numbers of problems, especially medicare and social security. Of course, in the long run, well, after they all die there wouldn't be a long run."

I'm older, married, and home owning and I fit the bill for that salary level. I even live in some ridiculously overpriced real estate market. It's not so much the stuff you HAVE to do that brings you down financially, it's the stuff you choose to do. Like owning a home. It's not for everyone, and we didn't learn until two years ago you really should have 20% down to buy. Does that mean home ownership is darn near impossible for a lot of people? Sure. Does that mean a lot more wait until they are 40 or 50 to buy a home instead of 30? Sure. But when you consider the median household income for my city is something like 35k a year, you start to feel pretty good. So yeah, college professors are underpaid compared to most engineers, doctors, lawyers, and especially wall street bankers(and I'm sure underpaid compared to bloated, right-wing radio nutjobs). But there IS a flip side of the coin on school teachers, police, firefighters, janitors, retail employees, fast food workers, temp workers, etc. I hope we can still call this guy a blowhard and other names while also realizing we as the middle class making a reliable $30k+ a year have it a lot better than a lot of people. Not to mention, the life of an office worker or college professor is pretty breezy compared to the way a lot of people have to earn their money. I know I wouldn't trade.

Posted by: timrowledge, Ersatz Haderach | July 28, 2010 6:24 PM

I have some (extremely loose, more-than-arm’s-length) connections to some people in the upper class. It’s a whole different world. These people collect quarter-million-dollar cars like a mere mortal might collect beer bottles. Blowing hundreds of dollars on dinner for two registers on their consciousness like grabbing a value meal at the drive-through to the rest of the world.

For a bit of scale on the UCB/Stanford salaries, note that a modest house in a very modest suburb in Milpitas (30-ish miles from either campus) will set you back around $800k last time I looked.

Posted by: Ophelia Benson | July 28, 2010 6:55 PM

Kollidge professers are too so millionaires - they teach for 70 years and save every penny over basic subsistence and then they've saved a million bucks! See? You all think you're so smart.

Posted by: kparker84 | July 28, 2010 7:01 PM

@Nerd

Oh, I know it's the normal and 'accepted' thing to pay someone in that position such a wild amount of money. In fact, their rationale when questioned was "well, we wanted to make sure we were going to bring in top-level prospects"..or something like that.

Basically, they say it's ok because everyone else is doing it.

I (and yes I know, who the fuck am I) just can't see ANY job being worth that much...Especially for a state position.

Posted by: Zeno | July 28, 2010 8:02 PM

I work in a chemistry department in one of the Univ. of California schools. Our department chair gets $198K. One of our vice-chairs makes $167K. A few of the regular full professors make $187K, $240K, and $221K, respectively.

You say that like it's a bad thing. Since UC dept chairs are professors in addition to being managers of their academic areas, I don't begrudge them a penny. And the senior professors must have gotten their status by keeping up their research and bringing in grant money. Good for them. That's very decent remuneration for being at the top of the academic pile in the University of California, a prestigious research institution.

Of course, it still doesn't make them millionaires, does it?

Posted by: raven | July 28, 2010 8:07 PM

bls.gov:

Earnings About this section

Median annual earnings of all postsecondary teachers in May 2008 were $58,830. The middle 50 percent earned between $41,600 and $83,960. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $28,870, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $121,850.

Earnings for college faculty vary with the rank and type of institution, geographic area, and field. According to a 2008–09 survey by the American Association of University Professors, salaries for full-time faculty averaged $79,439. By rank, the average was $108,749 for professors, $76,147 for associate professors, $63,827 for assistant professors, $45,977 for instructors, and $52,436 for lecturers. In 2008–09, full-time faculty salaries averaged $92,257 in private independent institutions, $77,009 in public institutions, and $71,857 in religiously affiliated private colleges and universities. Faculty in 4-year institutions earn higher salaries, on average, than do those in 2-year schools. In fields with high-paying nonacademic alternatives—medicine, law, engineering, and business, among others—earnings exceed these averages. In others fields, such as the humanities and education, earnings are lower. Earnings for postsecondary career and technical education teachers vary widely by subject, academic credentials, experience, and region of the country.

Many faculty members have significant earnings from consulting, teaching additional courses, research, writing for publication, or other employment, in addition to their base salary. Many college and university faculty enjoy unique benefits, including access to campus facilities, tuition waivers for dependents, housing and travel allowances, and paid leave for sabbaticals. Part-time faculty and instructors usually have fewer benefits than full-time faculty have.

Here are the statistics from the US government. While this isn't quite as easy to understand as the babblings of a right wing goon, it has the advantage of being reality.

The median for postsecondary teachers is $58,830.

Some earn a lot more. A lot earn a lot less.

Not bad these days but hardly into superrich territory. Don't forget that professors think 40 hours per week is a myth, most work a lot more than that. Don't forget that it requires some talent and an advanced degree, usually a Ph.D. or equivalent.

Posted by: raven | July 28, 2010 8:17 PM

Don't forget that it requires some talent and an advanced degree, usually a Ph.D. or equivalent.

Gnerally to even start on the academic tread mill, one has to have a postbac degree of some kind. That is a minimum of 9 years of higher education.

In the sciences, one will have done at least one postdoc and these days sometimes more than one.

To even start as an assistant professor making more than subsistence, people are generally pushing 30 if they are lucky.

Full professors at Tier 1 schools might be making $80-100K but that generally takes decades of hard work to get there.

What are the qualifications to be a right wing idiot babbling on the radio? A lobotomy and a moral compassectomy?

Posted by: Steven Dunlap | July 28, 2010 8:36 PM

@ MAJeff, #1

Contemporary conservatism is a personality disorder.

Sort of. It's a half-assed attempt at mis-direction. <Sarcasm> The dire financial straits of the California State educational system is not the fault of Prop 13, don't you see, you fools! It's all the fault of overpaid professors. </Sarcasm>

There may also be some bit of plain vanilla class hatred in Sussman's rant: if we accept the assumption that the professors are rich, then they're doing it wrong. You're supposed to denounce non-rich as lazy, stupid, criminal and not willing to work, even if your wealth was inherited.

(BTW I do not accept the assumption that the Cal professors are all rich, but they do make a very nice living, as someone who worked hard for a Ph.D. and now has to put up with undergrads should).

Posted by: jrberg | July 28, 2010 8:50 PM

Zeno @101 - I simply stated a few facts. I made no judgments about those facts. How do you know whether I think that those salaries are a bad thing or not? You must be a mind reader, perhaps.

My point was that there are faculty members in this country who are not at the $40-80K level that has been lamented in this post. Whether or not they deserve such salaries is perhaps debatable.

Complete disclosure: I have a PhD; I've worked pretty hard all my life; I have to put up with professors, undergrads, grad students, and postdocs, and I make $70K. I don't write big bucks grants, but I make all of the upper division instrumental courses work. And I love my job....

Posted by: DaveH | July 28, 2010 9:36 PM

Our department chair gets $198K.

For someone with ~10 years (undergrad, grad school, maybe postdoc) of university education, in a high stress managerial position (the dept. chair I worked for as a researcher during my undergrad described it as "herding cats"), plus maintaining a successful research program, maybe even teaching, and having at least ~10 years in as a prof, ~$200K sounds about right.

Upper-middle class, yes, but these are a poster children of "productive members of society". I have no problem with people such as that living a very comfortable life, especially if they live in an expensive city. They are rich yes, but they have earned it. They aren't an 18-year old child of "old money" who buys a Lamborghini on a whim.

Posted by: DaveH | July 28, 2010 9:58 PM

Most excellent.

Posted by: McCthulhu is taking ∞ to eat all the pi | July 28, 2010 10:19 PM

A university professor's salary is inversely proportional to the dire necessity of any right-wing radio (tv, newspaper, weblog, etc) host's need for a reality boost.

I wouldn't be too bad at fact fabrications. I've seen enough FoxNe*Coughcoughcofcofwheezcof* (I almost created a monstrous paradox there) . Kan I alzo haz raydeo sho , pleez?

Posted by: Harbo | July 28, 2010 11:06 PM

The problem with all this comparative income stuff, is that we don't know what the other person is actually earning;
Add to that all the obfuscation of side "perks" like cars/tuition/holidays and its all here-say and jealousy.
This is another place we mix up privacy and secrecy.
In my perfect world everyones income, in all forms, is public knowledge.
(also contracts... Every-time I hear "commercial in confidence" I think "what are they hiding" esp. if its from a government)

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/F95S8qIbhMwNLenl2gbXgkDKs4fjgIls1ctCKQ--#c565a | July 28, 2010 11:09 PM

I don't know, in my discipline (economics) the average starting salary for assistant professors at Ph.D.-granting universities is $100k.

That's pretty good.

If you get summer pay, or do consulting during the summer, you can typically add 2/9ths of your base salary to that, so we're talking about $122k.

The average starting salary for assistant professors at good business schools is more like $150k.

The average salary for all professors anywhere, granted, is lower. If you teach at a school that does not grant Ph.D.s, you might get 75k.

But the expectation, at least at my school, is that most of our Ph.D. students end up at a Ph.D.-granting university.

And I don't know about you, but starting with a six-figure salary sounds pretty good to me. In fact, most professors with that kind of salary will become millionaires before they retire, unless they spend extravagantly on non-durable goods (note: a house doesn't count). The comment that the average professor is a millionaire -- if they're talking about economics or business professors at Ph.D.-granting institutions like Berkeley or Stanford -- is entirely accurate. You forget that the definition of millionaires includes money spent on buying a house. They are millionaires, and yes, having more than a million dollars in wealth (including assets like a house) makes you very well off compared to the average American.

I am very left-wing, but I have to say that too many people like to pretend they are middle class.

It depends what kind of professor you are and where you teach, but I can believe the statement is accurate at Berkeley and Stanford. Being a millionaire does not mean you make a million dollars each year.

Posted by: elzoog | July 28, 2010 11:16 PM

This is one reason why HL Mencken said "Those who can do. Those who can't teach." If you can do something and make $200,000 a year then why teach it and make only $100,000 a year? It's the same reason politicians are stupid. Unless you become one of the big boys, you are not going to make a lot of money in politics.

Posted by: John Morales | July 28, 2010 11:28 PM

elzoog advocates Libertarianism 101:

If you can do something and make $200,000 a year then why teach it and make only $100,000 a year?

What possible reason could there be for someone to make that choice? :)

Posted by: John Morales | July 28, 2010 11:49 PM

Pygmy Loris,

professors have to do

Yes, that is an even more important point. Thanks.

Of course teaching is doing!

(Not to mention, many both teach and do.
There is no dichotomy.)

--

Without pedagogy, our culture could not function.

Posted by: elzoog | July 29, 2010 12:05 AM

Pygmy "I think the big thing is that professors have to do. Research is a required part of the gig. Good teaching skills will not get you tenure. "

I guess that's why one guy I know, Steven Gunhouse who got his PhD in mathematics (his dissertation title was "Highly Transitive Representations of Free Products with Amalgamated Subgroups") was working in a post office sorting and delivering mail the last time I talked to him.

He told me that he couldn't teach high school because he was diagnosed with schizoid personality (which would make him a boring teacher). I wonder why a university wouldn't hire him to do research.

Posted by: PeteJohn | July 29, 2010 12:27 AM

Millionaires? Huh? I'm from Missouri and if you look on our state's website for long enough you can find the state's payroll information. Not a single professor from my mid-sized university in rural Kirksville, MO makes anything above what I'd consider a comfortable but not exorbitant salary. With house payments, car payments, kids expenses and, for many, kids college, that shit runs out pretty quickly. So millionaires? Um... dude... no.

My mother just got an interim job as a VP of Academic Affairs at a small Catholic university here in St. Louis and she also makes a comfortable salary, but most of that is going straight to my folks' retirement fund which was wiped out when the economy took a dive. So yeah, millionaire is my mother... if by millionaire you mean NOT, Mr. Rightwingnonsenseblatterer.

Posted by: Hurin, Nattering Nabob of Negativism. | July 29, 2010 2:07 AM

These professors are all millionaires

Just supposing for a second that this is true (which it obviously isn't) since when do conservatives think its a bad thing for people to get rich?

I guess in order to "deserve" to be rich you have to be a lying sack of shit like Rush Limbaugh and reserve your protest for important things like the Parkinson's symptoms of Micheal J. Fox.

Posted by: fbudinichd | July 29, 2010 2:28 AM

You should invest your millions in gold (before the hyper inflation strikes!)

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/07/glenn-beck-goldline/

Posted by: John Morales | July 29, 2010 2:51 AM

Malcolm, I did make an error there.

I should've written 'Dr.', not 'Prof.'.

But yeah, you make a good point.

Posted by: grudgedk | July 29, 2010 3:15 AM

Wow. This must be some kind of hypocrisy singularity. Right wing nut cases slinging out accusations of millionaires pandering to the middle class? Like Bush who despite being from Connecticut, and having attended private school, and two Ivy League universities with an SAT score above 1200, owning a 1500 ache ranch and a personal net worth in excess of 20 million USD, is still someone the shit kicking, white trash, asshole, teabaggers can identify with? Really? Fuck Americans are stupid.

Posted by: MaxH | July 29, 2010 4:06 AM

Easy there, BlueEyedVideot. It's not 'Republicans' that are saying this, it's 'these particular conservatives.'

We have normal right-thinking people in our party, and we have wackos... much like you Democrats (I presume Democrat because of the way you characterize Republicans; if I'm wrong, let me know).

I'm college educated, I 'believe' in evolution (much in the same way as I 'believe' in gravity), and I only vote for people that tout their education as a GOOD THING (rather than the Bush-era 'Oh, he's just another guy you could have a beer with'). I don't want to have a beer with my president. I want him to solve the major civil rights and economic issues of the day.

My main point is, there are Republicans out there that are telling the truth about education and how we need to get more money into that system; it's just THESE shock jock jagoffs that are saying there's too much there already.

Posted by: Gore | July 29, 2010 6:23 AM

I guess the way people like this right wing nut see it, it's "claim flaw in established science (no matter how minute, or insignificant), assume alternative claim to be vindicated by default, proclaim truth, receive check...

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | July 29, 2010 7:03 AM

I don't want to have a beer with my president. I want him to solve the major civil rights and economic issues of the day.

Posted by: Matt "Nora" Penfold | July 29, 2010 7:47 AM

We have normal right-thinking people in our party, and we have wackos...

Pity though that you let the weirdos run for office. There really is no excuse for allowing Sarah Palin run for anykind of office as a Republican. Unless the aim is to make your party look as stupid as possible.

Posted by: Kel, The Privileged View From Nowhere | July 29, 2010 8:05 AM

lol

Posted by: Q.E.D | July 29, 2010 8:29 AM

The Republican machine understands that the facts are totaly and completely irrelevant.

Democrats have yet to come to grasp with this and are utterly innefective in combating the rank propaganda of the right. A Bush Aid in 2004 explained this phenomenon to Ron Suskind, New York Times Magazine 17 October 2004

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

Woe to the Republic!

Posted by: grudgedk | July 29, 2010 9:21 AM

@149: Indeed. Creating your own reality, like claiming that major combat operations in Iraq where over 7 years ago? They're not creating their own reality, they're creating their own delusions, although I suppose that distinction is lost on Republicans. In either case, nobody in the "reality-based community" is going to waste time (seriously) studying the delusions of grandeur of the GOP. They will simply be dismissed as falsified.

Posted by: Thomas Joseph | July 29, 2010 10:30 AM

Who is the millionaire? Sussman.

Damn hypocrites.

Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites | July 29, 2010 11:10 AM

My main point is, there are Republicans out there that are telling the truth about education and how we need to get more money into that system; it's just THESE shock jock jagoffs that are saying there's too much there already.

Tell the three of them to speak the fuck up then.

Posted by: MaxH | July 29, 2010 11:15 AM

#142 "You and who else. Name names - and I want names in the GOP with a realistic chance of being elected in their respective constituancies."

Margaret Dugan, who's running here for State Superintendant of Public Instruction, to name one off the top of my head. I saw her speak about raising teachers' salaries less than a week ago. From her website: "Introduce performance pay to our high performance teachers in order to recruit and retain the best teachers in our schools." She's got a darn good shot.

Point is, Republicans aren't usually for more education spending because we still need massive educational reform. What a lot of politicians (Democrats AND Republicans, thanks) fail to realize is that it doesn't have to be one or the other - it usually has to be both.

#145 "Pity though that you let the weirdos run for office. "

LOL, yeah, because the Democrats never run space cadets for office.

Here's the Sarah Palin logic in a nutshell (and we're naturally talking about nuts, because we're talking about John McCain): you guys had a woman, so did we. She was just about as anti-woman as a woman could get (rights-wise), and McCain couldn't see it. He also couldn't see that she had nothing going on in that coconut, but he wanted the female vote. [It should be fairly obvious from my description I don't vote for McCain. Ever.]

The reason the party got charged up about her was that the more extreme members of our party are the loudest ones. The Tea Party's taking off, and she speaks to them. I have no respect for her - after her pick as VP, I just stopped giving the Party money, and stopped volunteering. I'm would say I'm 'glad' Obama won, but that would be a stretch.

#148
"Obviously republicans like you are the minority, otherwise George W. Bush would never have been on the ticket, let alone be elected president and re-elected"

Hm. Well. I didn't like the reasons some of the members of my Party were voting for him, but I had my own reasons. I did actually vote for him in 2000/2004. I wouldn't want Al Gore or John Kerry running a taco stand, let alone my country. Was he the greatest thing since sliced bread? No. He was better than the other guy.

Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmqD_mcUIrSfOTlK3iGVsnEDcZmI43srbI | July 29, 2010 11:56 AM

So. I'm a millionaire -- really and truly. I have assets over liabilities in excess of $1 million (not by much, but just enough to sneak over the goalpost).

All of you who are looking at salaries are looking at the wrong thing. Someone can be a millionaire without earning a million dollars a year.

I never made more than $200,000 a year during my high-flying days -- for about a decade, I earned between $125K and $175K. But I lived modestly and invested wisely, including (importantly) trading high-priced real estate for low-priced real estate right before the market tanked.

It's not all that difficult to become a millionaire, as long as you have the good sense to get out of bubble markets early.

However, a million dollars doesn't buy as much as it used to, especially if you have to use it over a period of decades. I'm deferring replacing my balky water heater until next year; haven't bought a car (pay cash) in years; and on and on. And STILL I'm worrying about making the money last. And I still work to meet ordinary expenses.

Anyone who thinks that being a millionaire gets you on "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" is just clueless.

Posted by: gussnarp | July 29, 2010 12:09 PM

@MaxH - Ah, so when you say: "I only vote for people that tout their education as a GOOD THING (rather than the Bush-era 'Oh, he's just another guy you could have a beer with')," that's just a rhetorical flourish, not the truth. Or as we like to call it around here, a lie.

"Introduce performance pay to our high performance teachers in order to recruit and retain the best teachers in our schools."

Let me decode the statement for you. What she really means is: "Introduce higher pay for teachers are predominantly white suburban schools while we pack more and more predominantly black urban students into fewer and fewer underfunded schools so we can afford the higher suburban salaries and still cut total budgets." Because you see, "performance pay" really has nothing to do with performance, it's just pay based on student test scores. Student test scores are higher in predominantly white suburban schools. Now if you've got a way of measuring performance that can actually recognize the accomplishments of a teacher who took a bunch of kids who were unprepared from the moment they started kindergarten because they didn't have any books at home or parents who read to them, who are hungry, whose parents don't have time to help the, and who are pressured with real threats of significant violence on a daily basis and managed to teach them to read, even though it was several grade levels late, then I would accept performance pay.

Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe | July 29, 2010 12:40 PM

also, for those who are confused about why being a millionaire prof is bad:

making millions privately, no matter how = being a good capitalist

making any money thru state employment = being a worthless, communist leech on society

you see, private money just sort of makes itself and doesn't come out of the pockets of others, while state money is ripped directly from the pockets of the starving, hard-working populace

Posted by: CarlosT | July 29, 2010 12:52 PM

@Pygmy Loris, #122

Even with those minimums, what's really true about Ben Goren's statement is the "only earn the big bucks for a few years" part. The average NFL career is 3-4 years. A player earning the NFL minimum for four years will make a pre-tax total of $1.3 million over that time. That's a nice chunk of cash, no doubt. But it's the same that a person making $32,500 would make over a forty year career. And most players come out with significant, long-term health problems. Don't get me wrong, I think they make plenty of money, but in most cases it's not as much as it seems.

Anyway, I have to say I almost wish I lived in the world of conservative paranoid fantasies. Millionaire professors, all-powerful atheists and liberals... Doesn't sound too bad.

Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline. | July 29, 2010 2:45 PM

Professors wear ties?!

Posted by: Pygmy Loris | July 29, 2010 6:58 PM

elzoog,

Your alleged friend has a personality disorder that would probably make it difficult for him to work in any environment. Or, he might not be that good. Maybe one of the other 300 or so applicants would be better than him at the job and a better fit for the company?

Stephan Goodwin,

You're forgetting about taxes. $84,900 after taxes for a single person turns into $59,000 or so. Let's assume that you can live on $20,000 a year because you're frugal and live in a very small house, drive a reliable used car and simply don't spend much. Also, you don't have kids. That means you're only able to save about $30,000 per year meaning it will take you more than 30 years to save a million dollars.

BTW, If you actually bothered to read the link you provided, you would see that the information you provided is badly out of date (it mentions the 1999-2000 academic year) and that you used the average salary for full professors, which is the most advanced academic rank. It takes many years to make full professor. The overall average salary at OSU that year was $66,700 for the year cited.

From your link:

OSU paid the highest average salaries ($66,700) for all faculty members -- professors, associate professors, assistant professors and instructors -- at state-assisted universities in Ohio, followed by Cincinnati ($62,200), Ohio University ($58,000) and Miami ($57,800). Ohio University faculty, administrators and classified staff received an average 3 percent salary increase for the 1999-2000 academic year.

A much more recent assessment of Ohio university salaries can be found here (warning, pdf). The OSU average for '08-'09 ($100,462) is more than $20,000 more than its nearest competitor. Notice, though, that these are averages, not medians. Also, we don't know how much variability there is between departments and colleges within each campus. Anyway, your hypothetical professor would still be scrimping and saving for decades to hit one million dollars.

CarlosT,

You didn't follow the link, did you? Each year that a player spends in the NFL increases their salary. For instance, the minimum salary for a player with two years of experience in the 2012 season will be $505,000 dollars. Using the current contract players are under, your hypothetical average player making the minimum would earn $1.8 million over 4 years, that's %40 more than you assumed, and a huge difference. These guys make a lot of money, even the bench warmers. You're right about the injuries, but the consequences of injuries suffered from play are covered for life as part of the collective bargaining agreement the players are under. Being a profession athlete in one of the major sports means you're really bringing home the bacon. Ben G. was implying that most of the athletes you see on TV are comparable to professors in terms of income. That's demonstrably untrue for the big sports that get the most coverage.

Posted by: Kristjan Wager | July 30, 2010 3:51 AM

All of these salaries are for an ACADEMIC year - nine months. Just so you know....

How much money do they own the other 3 months? It's not like professors can just go out and earn money somewhere else for those months. In other words, those salaries are for a full year.

Another thing: Just because teaching stops during holidays, it doesn't mean research stops, or preparation for classes. Also, the work week of people who teach tend to be longer than a normal work week (grading etc. takes a lot of time).

I might have a twisted view on these things, as I work in the Danish IT sector (which is highly paid), but none of the wages I've seen for professors seems unreasonable to me. The wages to the coaches and sport people on the other hand...

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Spammer copypastas:

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If you're a cheap and tasteless idiot who wants to impress morons, that is.

Less cheap idiots buy the real thing, to impress other stupid people.

Posted by: Ed hardy shirts wholesale | July 30, 2010 8:24 PM

I think it's open to interpretation that Chelus, as a transcribed Greek word, should keep its Greek declension rather than being forced to become a Latin u-stem.

Posted by: Jay | July 31, 2010 8:21 PM

There was an interesting post here: http://www.collegiatetimes.com/databases/salaries about public college salaries. Certainly not millionaire status, but if you're teaching at U.C. Berkley then your are certainly on your way!