A tenured professor gives it all up

there are a lot of small colleges that likely skew the average down from what one would make at UF, FSU, UCF etc

salaried professors at UCF appear to all be above $125k with generous benefit packages and time off. for the self-directed intellectual, the position opens career options/benefits not open in many other occupations.

See how much your UCF professor gets paid, and what UCF administrators make — Page 6 of 28 — KnightNews.com

 

the employee benefits by publishing too. I would think that a professor who has published 100 papers has more opportunities than one that has published 10.

 

I agree in principle, but given how much revolves around package delivery now, probably not the best counterexample of societal valuation gone wrong. Also, they let UPS drivers organize. Faculty, not so much in most places. In fact, I remember reading about a school sending out a memo claiming professors were actually "management" so couldnt unionize lol.

 

most reputable doctoral programs are funded. The student gets a stipend and a tuition waiver. so the PhD student is paid to be there and they don’t pay tuition.

 

I agree that there does seem to be an all out assault on public education and a clear attempt to devalue higher education. In fact i had this conversation not long ago with a friend who thought college was a waste of time, yet he, his wife and his 2 kids are all college grads and doing well.

However, this article seems a bit extreme. I get that liberal arts profs, esp at non research schools don't make a lot but I know a couple of university professors and they make a heck of a lot more than $54K. There's a disconnect there somewhere.

 

It's even more bleak: Only something like 20% of college professors are even on tenure-track lines. Most teaching faculty are little more than cheap labor. As for 8+ years of school, some of us genuinely love our disciplines and many of us love being in school. I feel differently about $ than you and am partly cynical due to the way my father was about it and how it did nothing for him in the end. I refuse to be the way that he was about $, but I also have the luxury to be comfortable enough not to have to worry about it.

I'm happy enough taking a lesser salary because I get to teach and perform music. For me, that beats sitting in an office pouring over spreadsheets (actually, I have to do a fair amt of that too). $ is of much lesser importance than watching students collaborate on a project and demonstrate growth. I'm also one of the few professors who loves teaching and knows how to do it. Most profs didn't teach school, let alone graduate w teaching degrees. They are even more prone to anxiety, burnout, and disengagement.

 

Summers "off" are the best. Mine starts late, as I will teach a 4-wk summer course, but the extra pay is actually pretty good through the Univ of MN.

 

Sure, some of them are making that and much more, but I bet the average probably isn't even 125k.

Avg asst prof according to this source = 90k
Avg assoc prof = 105k
Avg full = 164k

These are only the figures for profs with full-time appointments (and maybe tenure-track only). Term faculty, or what some institutions refer to as Visiting Asst, get paid less and usually have fewer benefits. Adjunct pay is a fraction of that. Some adjuncts will teach the equiv of an asst professor's full-time load and get paid about 25%. Little or no bennies

University of Central Florida - Florida Salaries

 

the article was about a tenured professor making $54k annually so that is what I was looking at

 

Amen. Making enough money to live comfortably is what matters. Finding a job that provides you that sort of income while also allowing you to pursue passions and feel fulfilled is the perfect situation imo. Other folks may disagree, but I grew up around enough miserable rich people to know that lots of money won't itself make you happy.

 

Good perspective. It is really cool when you get to do what you enjoy and can be comfortable long term doing it. I was also partly speaking to the practical concern on the debt one might rack up with all that school though. If you come out of a PhD program, the average debt is 125k. You might spend your whole life in debt if you are making 60 or 70k. It doesn’t seem like a workable path in a lot of ways.
Semi off topic, but I had the exact opposite money experience as you. I was raised in what was largely a money insecure household. So I promised myself that would never be me. I’m actually only money driven for security, I buy almost nothing outside of necessities. I bargain shop, my car is a 2011, my iPhone is a 7, I live in a modest place…so all in, my monthly debt to income ratio is like 17 percent or something silly. I just throw the extra into savings or a stock account somewhere every month and that gives me a great deal of satisfaction. My friends make jokes about it all the time. But knowing the money is in the bank and I won’t ever be in that position again is what matters to me.
Weird how our childhoods impact us.

 

Ok, but you wrote "salaried professors at UCF appear to all be above $125k with generous benefit packages and time off." I felt a need to correct this.

 

395 "professors", average $164k

 

And? Do you know what that reference to "professor" means?

 

awfully antagonistic tonight.

nope, i didn't define the term, just quoting the term used in the source

 

Sounds way off to me. That's an entry level salary for a high school teacher in this district.

 

I'm simply correcting your suggestion about the salaries of UCF profs and their "generous benefits packages and time off." Take it for what it's worth.

Professor in this instance means Full Professor. It's the ultimate distinction/promotion among the ranks, which progress from Asst to Assoc to Full. [Edit: There are additional distinctions, like Distinguished or Emeritus). According to the link I posted, there are 375 Asst Profs and 420 Assoc Profs at UCF. As I mentioned above, the majority are not making 165k at UCF and the numbers shown only reflect full-time faculty (and maybe only tenure track). If you average in term faculty & adjuncts, the pay is much less than you think.