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A football coach, a dermatologist, an infertility specialist -- these are among some of the most highly compensated private college employees in the country, according to a new report released today.
While the average college professor makes a salary many would consider modest, the top 10 most highly compensated employees, according to the "Chronicle of Higher Education," brought in a combined $32 million in the 2007 fiscal year.
However, most college employees -- the rank and file people who clean your dorms, cook your food, and process your paperwork -- aren't particularly well paid at all.
We are definitely in a phase in higher education where there are "too many chiefs, not enough Indians." Lots of administrative bloat at the upper levels; too many executive directors of blahblahblah initiatives; too many people whose jobs solely involve going to meetings all day.
In a few years there will be massive downsizing at a lot of colleges and universities where many of these extraneous programs will be cut. Then you will see the salaries get more in line with reality.
However, most college employees -- the rank and file people who clean your dorms, cook your food, and process your paperwork -- aren't particularly well paid at all.
We are definitely in a phase in higher education where there are "too many chiefs, not enough Indians." Lots of administrative bloat at the upper levels; too many executive directors of blahblahblah initiatives; too many people whose jobs solely involve going to meetings all day.
In a few years there will be massive downsizing at a lot of colleges and universities where many of these extraneous programs will be cut. Then you will see the salaries get more in line with reality.
Welcome to academia. The epitomy of too many chiefs, too little indians. The tenured professors are too good to teach an undergraduate level class anymore, they're busy snatching grants with the intellectual property of their grad students. So leave the teaching to the said underpaid TA with poor command of English. All of course is substantiated by the inflated tuition (especially out-of-state tuition) these institutions charge on the back of brainwashed high school graduates who believe indebting yourself at the tune of 20K a year for 4 years (more like 5) to make a 35-45K job is the smartest of pursuits. Of course they all think they'll be getting 55-75K off the chute so that explains that but I disgress.
The silver lining is that access to affordable student loans is shrinking, leaving most only with access to personal eye gouging loans. Enough of these suckers get burned and the word will finally get around and straight up deter people from entering into these agreements, which will reduce the enrollment, which will hit these tenures and administrators right between the legs. Departments which should never have existed will shrink and/or consolidate. Ah, who am I kidding, trying to convey this message to some starry eyed high school senior and their boomer parents is like a blind guy trying to get an airline job. There aren't enough pshyc majors working retail in this country ,alongside technical PhD who thought they'd get a job like the big prof, but instead end up in their mid 30s teaching basketweaving in community college at 1000 bucks a pop, to apparently get that point across either
Well, there's going to be a reckoning, particularly since tuition continues to rise at a rate three times that of inflation. It is now an enormous sacrifice for a middle-class (Or even upper middle-class) family to send their children to even a mid-range private college. Student loans were a way to ensure the flow of students into these institutions, but eventually even those have proven to be too onerous, putting new graduates at a severe economic disadvantage as they start out in life.
Meanwhile, these same institutions keep building up huge foundations. Case in point? My alma mater has an enrollment of 1,200 students, yet has an endowment of $300,000,000. What's more, I get hounded monthly to give more. What the heck are they doing with all the money?
Scan the following and see for yourself: University of California's Over-$100,000 Earners (http://www.sfgate.com/webdb/ucpay/ - broken link)
Faculty are terribly underpaid. As with most things, the bulk of the $$ go to administrators and bureaucrats, groups that will undoubtedly benefit excessively from the new Obama government. Meanwhile, the rigour of undergraduate curricula rapidly erodes.
Welcome to academia. The epitomy of too many chiefs, too little indians. The tenured professors are too good to teach an undergraduate level class anymore, they're busy snatching grants with the intellectual property of their grad students. So leave the teaching to the said underpaid TA with poor command of English. All of course is substantiated by the inflated tuition (especially out-of-state tuition) these institutions charge on the back of brainwashed high school graduates who believe indebting yourself at the tune of 20K a year for 4 years (more like 5) to make a 35-45K job is the smartest of pursuits. Of course they all think they'll be getting 55-75K off the chute so that explains that but I disgress.
The silver lining is that access to affordable student loans is shrinking, leaving most only with access to personal eye gouging loans. Enough of these suckers get burned and the word will finally get around and straight up deter people from entering into these agreements, which will reduce the enrollment, which will hit these tenures and administrators right between the legs. Departments which should never have existed will shrink and/or consolidate. Ah, who am I kidding, trying to convey this message to some starry eyed high school senior and their boomer parents is like a blind guy trying to get an airline job. There aren't enough pshyc majors working retail in this country ,alongside technical PhD who thought they'd get a job like the big prof, but instead end up in their mid 30s teaching basketweaving in community college at 1000 bucks a pop, to apparently get that point across either
Don't forget about the adjuncts! In some schools, almost 50% of the faculty are part-timers with no benefits or job security, making $1000 a class and juggling 5 classes on 5 different campuses!
Then there are the people with PhDs in the Humanities working at the bookstore or part-time at the library after spending 5-7 years busting their *ss in grad school.
And let's not forget about about the requirement for science PhDs to do 3 years of post-doc work at $30,000 a year!
in TX when the state did not want to provide more funding to state colleges, the legislature in its "wisdom" removed the rule that made the legislature responsible for setting the tuition cost and let the colleges/universities set their own charges--just like power/electricity deregulation that was "supposed" to create competition and lower energy rates to homeowners--this dumba-- decision allowed colleges free rein to just raise the tuition to what the applicants were willing to pay--
a true market driven price point--whether the college had a large endowment or not--
now that people are screaming about the rising cost (and lesser quaility in many cases) of college tuition, the legislature is beginning to see that was designed to set the wolves among the sheep...
much of that money has gone to hiring/paying admins who are good at marketing their university and not necessarily raising the quality of instruction for students...
if they hire "world-known" professors they usually wind up trying to enhance the college's rep by meeting/greeting/asking for more college funding vs actually teaching
or some universities hire scientists/researchers for their labs/science/medical colleges and hope they discover something the university can patent and make money from...
much of that money has gone to hiring/paying admins who are good at marketing their university and not necessarily raising the quality of instruction for students...
if they hire "world-known" professors they usually wind up trying to enhance the college's rep by meeting/greeting/asking for more college funding vs actually teaching
or some universities hire scientists/researchers for their labs/science/medical colleges and hope they discover something the university can patent and make money from...
yep, yep and yep.
Also, another annoying trend is how they create jobs for the spouses of the professors and administrators they hire. A department on campus "finds a place" for the wife or husband - you know, just a spare professorship lying around or something - or creates their spouse as a "special assistant" blah blah. More money down the drain.
That's why I'm driving it home to my future kids that they're doing AP credits, gen ed at community college and/or state school and then finish that sucker off in-state on the cheap. It's all fluff anyways. They want the kool-aid flavored degree at a premium ? Pay for it sonny, I ain't helping ya. Some tough love but kids gotta learn you know (my kids are gonna HATE me...)
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