Because UMass is a state school, base salary is probably limited but some statute or other. The extra pay is probably derived from external sources and funnelled through the university.
At my alma mater most professors made between 80-120k depending on department (I know because I saw lots of contracts as part of an on campus job) but there was a lot of variation. Business/engineering department profs generally made more, low 6 figures was the low in that department, but thats likely because they were the few that could actually get jobs in the real world.
Art and english type associate (non-tenure) profs made like 50-60k.
This is what I’ve seen as well. Good professors make significant more from consulting engagements from companies that pay like $300 per hour in fees. the university salaries itself doesn’t pay that much
^ what’s your educational background out of curiosity…?
Dont you guys think that if your a professor with a Nobel Prize (or something like that) you ought to be making at least as much as a guy who is pretty low level at Goldman?
I do, anyway.
Professors get other benefits, for instance tenure, pension, and sometimes a house (or zero interest loan). And those are just the explicit benefits. Don’t forget that professors often get paid as consultants (as iteracom mentioned) or expert trial witnesses, and often have ground level access to new technologies or lucrative commercial ventures. I guarantee that Larry/Sergei’s PhD advisor is a multi millionaire by now.
That last part is for professors of technical subjects, of course. If you teach poetry or something, probably your commercial success would be a bit less.
Very few professors have opportunities like Larry and Sergei’s professor, who actually took an equity stake in the startup.
The point is that universities, at least public ones, are not paying professors 500k per year out of funds derived from student tuition.
To TRH’s question, if you want to make at least as much as a low level guy at Goldman, than quit and get a job at Goldman. My fixed income professor in grad school did extensive consulting at GS while drawing a university salary, which is why a graduate assistant taught 80% of our class sessions.
Considering that the positions are generally 6-9 credit hours per week, with maybe a few more office hours, AND this is at most an 8 month per year job, I’d take that kind of pay in a heartbeat.
I worked for a while with a guy who worked in the business office of my university… seriously, be barely did anything but play on his ipad and go to meetings. I was offered a job in my school after I graduated. I could have made 42k/yr for working 8-4 doing nothing more challenging than reconciling investment accounts and manging the back and forth with external money managers for our endowment.
^ the real value in that job would have been free or significantly reduced tuition for your kids, if you have any.
I don’t, and I didn’t take the job anyway, but by the time I have kids, college tuition will be equal to my annual salary so it might come a time when I try to find a job with a university endowment managing money and getting free tuition for the kids.
College might be so expensive in 18-20 years that it will be more cost effective to be a janitor at a major university and get the free tuition than it is to be chairman of Goldman and pay.
I know some major universities will offer full rides to children of full tenure professors. Any school they want
Not sure if those scholarships apply to any school the kid wants to attend. I know this kid whose dad is a tenured professor at MIT (and Nobel Prize winner). He only got a free ride at MIT.
At my school, you had to be an employee for 5 years before your kids were eligible for a 100% tuition waiver, I guess to avoid people starting there simply for the waiver. Keep in mind this applied to all employees, not just profs.
We were part of a reciprocal tuition waiver program of like 30-40 universities, so profs and employees of my school could send their kids to another school in our program at the same rules. I had a couple friends who attended my school under that program.
My dad was at a major university. When I was born, my parents had to choose between getting a free ride at that university (assuming I would be able to get in, which of course is not guaranteed when one is 6 months old), or up to 1/2 of that university’s tuition to go somewhere else.
My parents turned to me, asked which I would prefer; I replied something along the lines of “goo,” with a little spittle streaming from my mouth, and they decided that they’d go for up to half tuition anywhere. That turned out to be the right choice, as I had no interest in staying in town for college.
My wife’s university offers a full ride to any 5 year employee’s child who can actually get in (less than 10% of applicants), or 50% of tuition and mandatory fees elsewhere. It appears they actually do enforce the admission requirements as well because my wife’s boss, a legit candidate for university president recently, was not able to get his daughter admitted.
I had heard about free rides at different universities when they share funding for research on a specific field. Those free rides at the university of your choice are new to me.