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Comment by santaclaus | Hacker News Reader

That seems like an unusually low salary, then. Let's pick a major public research university in the US and a department, say Physics UT Austin (feel free to play the same game with data from another public and another department, like CS at UC Berkeley). Browsing through professor salaries [1], by the time Professors hit tenure they are approaching or breaking 100K a year. Five to seven times this is 500-700K a year!

[1] http://www.texastribune.org/library/data/government-employee...

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Pay raises after tenure are nowhere near what you see in the private sector. And people who get tenure at Cal or UT are exceptional. Do you think the smartest 30-40yos in Austin outside UT are only making 500k?

So let's pick a mid-range public research university with mandatory salary reporting. I'm going to go with bio medical engineering at UNC Chapel Hill [1]. These cats are breaking 100k at associate professor. This is also just salary. Most profs I know take in another 30-40k a year between consulting, testifying as experts in court, etc. While 130 +/- 30k a year isn't going to catapult you into the upper echelons of the American elite, a guaranteed gig for life at six figures with benefits is hardly a bad way to live. Could these guys make more money in private sector? Sure. But they certainly aren't hurting either.

[1] http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/02/24/1011452/university-em...

>Could these guys make more money in private sector?

Yes, maybe 5-7 times as much. The people you're talking about are exceptional. (How is UNC mid-range?)

> Yes, maybe 5-7 times as much.

I do not think we are arguing here. My point is that good professors and good universities have a solid quality of life. Whether this reward system is the best for society in the long term is another question.

> How is UNC mid-range?

It ain't no Ivy.

> It ain't no Ivy.

...and I stop taking you seriously.

Nobody gets tenure anymore. Most stay as associate professors, and make 60-70k.

It's usually a big deal when a professor fails to make tenure at a respectable university. I can think of multiple case studies at MIT and Stanford. Departments look bad when they are forced to drop promising talent.

It's becoming far more common.

More importantly, there are far more positions being created that aren't on tenure track in the first place.

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