God, I'm sick of the claim that college professors "don't make much money." The average US household income is less than $50,000. A full Harvard professor probably makes 3x that, an assistant professor close to 2x. Granted, that's Harvard -- but it's also, more or less, 100 other universities. Even a community college full professor will make more than 50K, I think.
 

Fair enough. I meant in relation to the really big donors/bundlers--business types, lawyers and Wall Street people. But sure, compared to the average American, college professors are well-paid.
 

Goes left? ask Matory how he feels today...
 

That's a nice whiny comment, but not very solid on the merits.

It's true that the median household income is less than $50K; the average, however, is much higher (more than $60K). The reason for this of course is that income inequality is insanely high (the same as in the twenties) and there is a very very long (and thin) tail occupied by society's elites. If you make any effort to factor out people without college degrees, or control for really just about any correlate of institutional achievement you'd like to name, academic salaries are very low.

As so often happens in this country, these conversations about median incomes are skewed by the very large base (compared to other First-World countries) of underemployed people below the poverty line. (Conversations about affluence, meanwhile, are skewed the other way by people who use 'average' income figures.)

I'm reading Krugman's OUTSTANDING book about the political origins of economic inequality. It should be required reading for all educated Americans.

- Academics in most fields, despite enormous personal investment in professionalization, are not part of the economic elite of the country. Not by a long shot.

In what other skill-based profession does one undergo eight years of postbaccalaureate training, at sustenance wages, in order to arrive at the following numbers? (05-06 data)


Assistant Professor Anthropology $ 53,655
Assistant Professor Biology - General $ 54,101
Assistant Professor Communications/Journalism (all) $ 49,515
Assistant Professor Education - General $ 50,296
Assistant Professor Foreign Languages/Literatures $ 48,900
Assistant Professor History - General $ 47,994
Assistant Professor Humanities - General $ 48,635
Assistant Professor Law - General $ 81,005
Assistant Professor Literature - General $ 47,249
Assistant Professor Mathematics/Applied Mathematics $ 51,547
Assistant Professor Natural Sciences $ 53,200
Assistant Professor Philosophy $ 48,162
Assistant Professor Psychology - General $ 50,315
Assistant Professor Religion and Theology $ 45,927
Assistant Professor Sciences - General $ 52,775
Assistant Professor Social Sciences - General $ 52,998

Lecturer/Instructor
Instructor Biology - General $ 39,798
Instructor Education - General $ 40,344
Instructor Fine Arts - General $ 39,102
Instructor Foreign Languages/Literatures $ 37,111
Instructor History - General $ 38,030
Instructor Humanities - General $ 38,620
Instructor Literature - General $ 34,712
Instructor Mathematics/Applied Mathematics $ 37,761
Instructor Natural Sciences $ 41,482
Instructor Philosophy $ 37,906
Instructor Psychology - General $ 39,546
Instructor Religion and Theology $ 41,072
Instructor Sciences - General $ 40,256
Instructor Social Sciences - General $ 39,634

http://www.academickeys.com/all/salary.php


The median individual income in 2003 for people with doctorates was less than $71K. That's at LEAST four years of training for an annual lifetime bump of $10K. A nineteen-year-old makes that in a week at online poker.


Your specific number for a Harvard assistant professors is off by a good bit: it's only $75K on average (and that includes B-school and such, I imagine). Moreover, that's living in Cambridge or right nearby; the per-capita Cambridge income is $31K, which is extremely high for a city of its size. If counted by itself it would be the ninth-most-expensive city with a population over 100,000 in the country.

http://tinyurl.com/2222b6


By contrast, a family practitioner after three years in practice (which I think is roughly eight years into the field of medicine, and not in a glamor specialty) averages $142500 a year.

Facts are good things.

Standing Eagle
 

Correction -- for "ninth most expensive city" read "ninth highest per-capita-income city."
 

Also note that "per capita" income is not at ALL the same as "household income."
 

SE, I'm sorry, but your barrage of numbers covers up mostly bullshit. Note your list is of lecturers, instructors and assistant professors. A full professor like yourself is earning more than that GP at $142,500. I wonder if you actually interact socially with people who earn less than 60K. If you do, you might be surprised to discover that some of them teach at Harvard.
 

PS Ironic that you'd call my 1st post whiny. By any reasonable standard, you are well paid (with attractive perks). Ivy League professors who complain they're not, are generally called whiny by the rest of the world.
 

You seem to be assuming that you know who I am.
 

I don't know who you are, but I know how much you're paid!
 

No you don't.
 

I, on the other hand, know how much your mother is paid.
 

No, you don't.
 

On the substance --

You're right, that family practitioner with THREE YEARS ON THE JOB (plus maybe three or five more as a resident) is not making any more than a FULL PROFESSOR AT HARVARD, who by almost any accounting is at the top of her profession.
You've made my point exactly -- which, just to restate what should be obvious, is not about me but about the state of my professional world.

The broad sketch of your argument looks appealing, but if you look closely at any of its statistical substance it disintegrates like the thin tissue of anti-intellectual ressentiment that it is.

Also: your mother.

SE
 

SE, that's probably the salary my child's paediatrician is making, only from the look of him he's been on the job close to 30 years. I imagine many Harvard professors make far more than $140,000 (and those that don't are probably not working as hard as a typical GP--let's be honest). They get grants, fellowships, are paid while on leave (is the doctor?), become deans, departmental chairmen, do lucrative consulting, and so on. I've always been flabbergasted that full Harvard profs get so many of the $55K Radcliffe fellowships on top of their salaries (as, no doubt, a Radcliffe fellow yourself, correct me if I'm wrong on the details; I assume it's "on top")... Homi Bhaba are you listening?

None of this I begrudge Harvard profs... until they start whining.

I taught in the College for many years and only broke $50K when I donated my nights to the Extension School. Ressentiment yes, but not "anti-intellectual": I don't know why I should have earned $30,000 less per year than a much less hardworking assistant professor who could afford to buy his overpriced Cambridge 1 BR, while I (with yes, my child) had to rent one.

So there! *Your* mother, SE .
 

I guess what this debate demonstrates is that Harvard professors compare themselves to doctors, lawyers, and traders, and (correctly, I'll bet) find themselves underpaid by those standards. They don't consider that the vast majority of well-educated, hard-working people are not doctors, lawyers, or traders.

But I think this is sort of like envying the biggest house on the block. One doesn't think about the ten other houses that are smaller than one's, and this effect is not limited to Harvard professors.
 

Sorry I mistook you for a different Anonymous who might have been sniping at universities from the outside, having run out of hope that the Bush Administration can be defended affirmatively but certain that the evil of the Left is still the biggest problem in the US.

It sounds actually like we're agreeing -- on the low end, academic salaries are way too low. So shouldn't we focus the conversation on the institutional choices that lead to people like you (and, once, me) doing all the teaching at starvation wages while the endowed-chair types hardly work at all? Across an average career, a teacher of college students does not earn what s/he is worth; that was my point and in a way it seems to have been yours as well.

In a way, then, if I was whining, I was whining on YOUR behalf -- not my own. That's why I picked the numbers for nontenured teachers in the first place!

SE


(Okay, I see now that I misread the website where I got the physician number. Pediatricians with three OR MORE years' experience make an average of $147K. That's still pretty damn good for an average. And I'm guessing your paediatrician is worth $165K a year but makes $175K because of that extra A in his job title. That's some high-end stuff there, that extra vowel.)
 

The evil of the Left IS still the biggest problem in the US.

-Sniper
 

Sn(ot wi)per, more like it. Grow up and say what you're talking about or stop wasting our time with Limbaughian epigrams. If by evil you mean gay marriage, right to (a decent) life after as well as before birth, health insurance for all, tell us just why these, or those supporting them are EVIL. Or are you still thinking of Monica L.?
 

I think SNiper's kidding, SE. (Or, to be exact, YKWIA).
 

Standing Eagle, you are a very well informed person. If you are a Professor my guess is that you make a lot more than $140,000. Maybe twice that amount.
 

from 5.22 Friday night:

"They don't consider that the vast majority of well-educated, hard-working people are not doctors, lawyers, or traders."

What are they? And are they truly "well-educated," or merely "educated"?
 

1:09, if that's sarcasm it's too subtly for my puny wit to process.

10:25 underscores what I continue to think is the key point -- if by 'well-educated' one means 'extensively professionalized through four or more years of postgraduate education' (not the most obvious definition, but a legitimate one for comparison with PhD'd college teachers), then it's hard for academics not to regard other professions invidiously.

Again, I am NOT complaining.

Standing Eagle

PS. Paul Krugman's blog has an outstanding remedial post on Social Security this morning.
 

Oh, and obviously: You Know Who I Am at 6:25 was not me. I've yet to post something without my moniker on this blog.

SE
 

Holy cow! Richard, you're asleep at the switch.

Ruth Wisse (along with more typically obnoxious Bush choices Pipes and VDH) is being awarded a National Humanities Medal.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h01-mxG0tRiM5jasl_Ws7OLnJtjwD8STLT4O0

I do not yet have an opinion on this, but I'm sure someone will help me develop one.

Standing Eagle
 

10:25am, are you kidding me? If you actually believe that the only well-educated, hard-working people on this earth are doctors, lawyers, traders, or professors, you're posting proof that being well-educated (if you are) doesn't necessarily mean you have a lick of sense. How out of touch can you get?
 

Then answer the question, Egret. "very-educated" vs "educated." Which professions are you thinking of, who aren't docs/lawyers/profs/traders.
 

i haven't been contributing to this somewhat confused thread but how about: architects, psychologists, librarians (who have more education than traders), teachers (ditto), consultants, software designers, city planners, government workers at various levels, research scientists in industry and academia, public health specialists, engineers, advertising executives, those in the entertainment industry (writers directors producers), editors, publishers, journalists, chefs, small business owners, insurance executives, non-profit administrators.
 

A good list. But many of those people will have only BAs, or fairly unrigorous master's degrees (M.Ed, MSW); and I'm not sure if we can really describe an MBA as "well-educated."

And before the shit starts to fly - I'm only a semi-educated BA myself.
 

The Chronicle of Higher Education lists salary ranges at various universities once a year. Among full professors, the range includes those in highly competitive (and hence well compensated) fields as well as those in fields with lower average salaries. At that rank, there's a larger differential from field to field than at lower ranks. Standing Eagle--who isn't a professor, in my humble opinion--is fairly close to the target when he lists salaries for assistant professors at Harvard.
I'm a very productive full professor in a field that isn't as highly rewarded as others, so this time I'll remain anonymous. No point in whining: that's just how it is. I took this job because I enjoy teaching and doing scholarly work.
 

Dahling, you can't possibly have thought I'd be jealous of some old medal given out by George Bush! How well I remember the night of my own glory when, in my loveliest evening frock, long white gloves, and gold lamé heels, I curtseyed to the floor and then retreated backwards with never a stumble. Swoop all you like, Standing Eagle, but don't think I care tuppence about some old chauve-souris tangled up in a Bush.
 

Anon 10:27PM here again. Here is a tinyURL for the most recent Chronicle of Higher Education faculty salary survey:
http://tinyurl.com/28mztm
According to this listing, a full professor at Harvard earned $177,400 on average last year.
 

That can't be the average in Arts and Sciences. It must be distorted by the professional schools.
 

Anonymous 11:21 is correct. The AAUP salary survey includes all the faculties. This makes it pretty much worthless for comparisons between institutions. The reported average of $91,300 for assistant professors is a dead giveaway (arts and sciences asst. profs. make considerably less).

An anecdote: an old student of mine, class of '93, took up an assistant professorship at an Ivy League law school a few years back. He had a JD, but no PhD. He complained to me that he was taking a salary cut (since he had spent two years previously as an associate in a big major-city law firm). I took the opportunity to ask him what his salary was. It turned out he was making more -- as a first year assistant professor -- than I was after over 20 years as a full professor in the FAS.