How much are professors paid? • Hacker News Board

Re: How much are professors paid?

#31

Post by eesmith » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 6:39 PM UTC

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #18

stingraycharles wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate a bit? I know that over here there are certain requirements (needs to teach classes, publish at least one paper a year). Is this different in the US?

There are multiple 'professor' titles, but only one tenured faculty role. The tenured faculty is the holy grail, and everyone else is underpaid and overworked. [0] You have instructor, assistant professor, associate professor, and professor. There's also such things as visiting professor (temporary postition) or professor emeritus (used to be a professor). [0]. https://www.bu.edu/handbook/appointments-and-promotions/…

Could you clarify what 'one tenured faculty role' means?

The link you gave says "The granting of Tenure, discussed in “Tenure and Promotion on the Charles River Campus”, is a separate guarantee that is not implied by any of the titles discussed in this section."

The tenure document, for example, says that 'The award of tenure to an Assistant Professor shall include promotion to the rank of Associate Professor.' So 'tenured associate professor' is a tenured faculty role, in addition to the 'tenured professor' faculty, such as http://www.bu.edu/wheelock/dr-leslie-dietiker-promoted-to-as... .

Re: How much are professors paid?

#32

Post by chris11 » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

jknz wrote: post #28

The take-away from this is that - several (maybe most) state universities in the US publish the salaries of their professors. Some state universities publish comprehensive (creepy?) granular data, e.g., a spreadsheet with each row displaying professor name, professor salary, rank, department. - aggregated statistics (across all fields, all ranks, tenure-track/non-tenure-track, etc) are useless because of the variance…

> several (maybe most) state universities in the US publish the salaries of their professors.

I'd expand this to state governments. It depends on the state, but for some states you can find a lot of detailed salary information.

Re: How much are professors paid?

#33

Post by joshuamorton » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

jknz wrote: post #28

The take-away from this is that - several (maybe most) state universities in the US publish the salaries of their professors. Some state universities publish comprehensive (creepy?) granular data, e.g., a spreadsheet with each row displaying professor name, professor salary, rank, department. - aggregated statistics (across all fields, all ranks, tenure-track/non-tenure-track, etc) are useless because of the variance…

> several (maybe most) state universities in the US publish the salaries of their professors. Some state universities publish comprehensive (creepy?) granular data, e.g., a spreadsheet with each row displaying professor name, professor salary, rank, department.

My understanding is this is practically a requirement for government employees, so if the university is public, this data must be provided. Similarly, you can look up the salary/pay for most other government employees, although they're usually strict to scales.

Re: How much are professors paid?

#34

Post by ModernMech » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 6:50 PM UTC

If you want some real data for computer science, there is a survey conducted every year on this topic: https://cra.org/resources/taulbee-survey/

This is broken down by region, size of school, state vs. local, seniority, title, etc.

Re: How much are professors paid?

#35

Post by seancoleman » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 6:55 PM UTC

I’m an adjunct faculty at ASU and make $4,000/year for one course. This stipend is a nice gesture but I do it for the kids.

Re: How much are professors paid?

#36

Post by klank » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 6:55 PM UTC

jknz wrote: post #28

The take-away from this is that - several (maybe most) state universities in the US publish the salaries of their professors. Some state universities publish comprehensive (creepy?) granular data, e.g., a spreadsheet with each row displaying professor name, professor salary, rank, department. - aggregated statistics (across all fields, all ranks, tenure-track/non-tenure-track, etc) are useless because of the variance…

> aggregated statistics (across all fields, all ranks, tenure-track/non-tenure-track, etc) are useless because of the variance

Could you expound on that? How does the variance in underlying data cause aggregated statistics to lose usefulness?

Re: How much are professors paid?

#37

Post by tombert » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:01 PM UTC

This depresses me a bit. I make substantially more than the average professor, and I'm just an eccentric dropout working at a big megacorporation.

I would like to do research full-time some day, but considering that completing my bachelors and then getting my PhD can get incredibly expensive, it gives me pause if I know that my salary is going to be cut in half in the process.

Re: How much are professors paid?

#38

Post by kd0amg » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:08 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #37

This depresses me a bit. I make substantially more than the average professor, and I'm just an eccentric dropout working at a big megacorporation. I would like to do research full-time some day, but considering that completing my bachelors and then getting my PhD can get incredibly expensive, it gives me pause if I know that my salary is going to be cut in half in the process.

A professor typically isn't working full-time on research either.

Re: How much are professors paid?

#39

Post by chrisseaton » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #37

This depresses me a bit. I make substantially more than the average professor, and I'm just an eccentric dropout working at a big megacorporation. I would like to do research full-time some day, but considering that completing my bachelors and then getting my PhD can get incredibly expensive, it gives me pause if I know that my salary is going to be cut in half in the process.

You can do full-time research in your megacorporation on your current salary or higher, probably.

Re: How much are professors paid?

#40

Post by jknz » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

klank wrote: post #36

jknz wrote: post #28

The take-away from this is that - several (maybe most) state universities in the US publish the salaries of their professors. Some state universities publish comprehensive (creepy?) granular data, e.g., a spreadsheet with each row displaying professor name, professor salary, rank, department. - aggregated statistics (across all fields, all ranks, tenure-track/non-tenure-track, etc) are useless because of the variance…

> aggregated statistics (across all fields, all ranks, tenure-track/non-tenure-track, etc) are useless because of the variance Could you expound on that? How does the variance in underlying data cause aggregated statistics to lose usefulness?

Say you receive an offer for a specific position in a specific department and hope to negotiate a better salary. Aggregated data averaged across all fields, all universities and all ranks is not useful. However, the salaries of recent hires, for the same specific position, in the same field at comparable universities will give objective data (and possibly leverage) to negotiate your offer.