this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2024
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In the US, most professors are part time adjunct and get no health benefits. Probably make 30-50k.
Tenured faculty at major universities make 70-90k.
Considering these jobs requires at least 9 years of uni (in the US), the lifetime income of professors is still very low.
RE TAs: I US stem fields TAs work 20h and make 15-30k. That usually includes free tuition, but not in all states (e.g. in Texas, you sometimes pay tuition out of your TA pay, which is crazy)
When I left academia to go to the private sector, I got a 40% bump in pay, and worked at least 30% less. And I didn't have to write grants to support my program. When I was an academic, I thought people never came back to academia from the private sector because they couldn't. I quickly found out that it was because they'd have to be crazy to come back. I wouldn't have returned to the university for anything less than an endowed chair. And that was NOT going to happen.
I'm almost the same story. Now I have great pay, fully remote, and a position where I'm respected, without competing egos, and folks want what I have to offer.
Kinda a tangent, but my department was always having guest speakers come from "alternative careers" but none were better paying or higher status than a professorship. Usually park rangers or low paying consulting things. Maybe I just had bad luck, but it really pushed the narrative that there were no opportunities out there. I'd love to give that talk to a department of PhD students, to give them my perspective if what's important from the outside looking in.