CNN is surprised at how much astronomers make, and how few there are
personally I am surprised at how little paramedics make
On an unrelated note, the next Hubble servicing missions launch has slipped at least five weeks, from end of August to early October.
Given hurricane season, the delay in putting together the shuttle tanks and to have two shuttles on the pad, it is not unreasonable to expect additional delays.
As is, with the need for orbit verification, the next observing cycle is likely to slip into early 2009.
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WTF. There are more than 1700 PhD astronomers in the US and the mean salary has to be lower than 95K, unless there is some guy making three million bucks and ruining it for everyone. Did they count and average only tenured professors?
I'm thinking they might have been only looking at the non-professorial sort. Those employed by, eg, NASA and satellite companies, given the job description.
Second Ben's comments on that alleged average astronomer salary. I have a suspicion that they did count only tenure track faculty and career civil servants. And I will further guess that any ex-astronomers who went into administration would be included in the total, since they would still technically be tenured faculty (usual practice around here, and everywhere else I'm familiar with, is that an external hire for a university administration post gets a tenured professorship in the appropriate department) while pulling in a salary that in most cases is significantly higher than a typical professor salary.
Paramedics are definitely underpaid. However, I do see the origins of the widespread belief that administrative types siphon off a disproportionate share of K-12 education money: it makes sense to pay principals a little more than teachers at the same school, but the differential was a surprise to me.
I originally thought your comment at the top was referring to them being astonished at how little astronomers make. I was shocked to find that a) the number is that high and b) the author felt that the number (which is obviously wrong) is too high. I left astronomy for many reasons, one of them being the pay. If that number were true I may have reconsidered.
I, also, love the comment about "maybe it shouldn't be all that surprising considering a doctorate is the standard level of education." That is why in my opinion it should be higher! Don't get me wrong, people get a PhD in something because they love it and not for the money. But if that number were true, I think it would be justified.
Astronomers at NASA centers do indeed make bank. And there are a lot of them.