What Professors Make

[blaspheming]

I recently came across this Chronicle article on average faculty salaries across universities, using recent AAUP survey data.

http://chronicle.com...ble-2012/131433

These numbers are higher than I expected. I was under the impression that a first-year assistant professor position would start in the $50k range at an average university.

Are these salaries skewed by the money-making STEM faculty? Where does political science fall within this range?

Edit: Fixed link

Edited April 11, 2012 by blaspheming

[PDCU]

link don't work bro

[Behavioral]

http://docsig.org/index.php/who-went-were/who-went-where-and-salary-surveys

Starting assistant professors in marketing (across all schools) make on average $130,000/year. Elite school median starting salary is around $165,000-$180,000/year.

[Eigen]

Actually, it's frequently not the STEM professors that skew things as much as professionals.

Business schools, programs with JDs teaching political science, and clinical programs (counseling, etc) tend to pay a lot to compete with industry. STEM salaries, while higher, gave up trying to compete with industry a while back, and are instead all about a different lifestyle and career path.

Just from what I've seen.

[Behavioral]

Following what Eigen said, Business Schools have not given up on trying to compete with industry compensation. B-schools have experienced the problem with too many of its doctorates going to industry to consult for much higher pay ($200k+ is reasonable starting for a Business PhD), which have led to more clinical/executive professors having to fill in what would normally be tenure-track research faculty positions. The AACSB (our business school accrediting board) required a B-school to have 1/2 its full-time faculty to hold PhDs, so this has been driving up demand for doctorates as older faculty are now retiring at increased rates.

Marketing salary has increased from something like average $90k/year to $130k/year starting salary since 2000 or so.

[Behavioral]

And here's an article (from ASU's business school) illustrating some of the points I addressed in the last post. It's from 2007, but for the most part, this trend has not been halted:

http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1426

[CooCooCachoo]

All three posts.

Not to state the obvious, but, eh, you're in the Pol. Science forum. Now while the field might be in need of marketing, it isn't quite Marketing.

[PDCU]

For whatever its worth, there is also this: http://oira.unc.edu/faculty-salaries-plus-compensation.html

[Behavioral]

Not to state the obvious, but, eh, you're in the Pol. Science forum. Now while the field might be in need of marketing, it isn't quite Marketing.

However the OP did ask, "Are these salaries skewed by the money-making STEM faculty?"

And still, to some of you doing formal modeling/game theory for your research, business schools have been known to hire PoliSci grads straight out of their doctorate:

http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/Faculty/Directory/Diermeier_Daniel.aspx#vita

http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/Faculty/Directory/Feddersen_Timothy.aspx#vita

[flyers29]

Here's a 2008 study that the APSA completed.

http://www.apsanet.o...rt%20ver2.0.pdf

I always thought starting salaries were in the 40s or something--then I heard that an Asst. in my dept hired this year started in the 70s. I was shocked, thought not as surprised now that I read this.

[RWBG]

However the OP did ask, "Are these salaries skewed by the money-making STEM faculty?"

And still, to some of you doing formal modeling/game theory for your research, business schools have been known to hire PoliSci grads straight out of their doctorate:

http://www.kellogg.n...aniel.aspx#vita

http://www.kellogg.n...mothy.aspx#vita

I think Diermeier and Feddersen are pretty far from typical, and weren't hired "straight out of their doctorate." Moreover, Kellogg's Decision Sciences is kind of an outlier amongst business schools in terms of willingness to hire formal political theorists.

[Behavioral]

I think Diermeier and Feddersen are pretty far from typical, and weren't hired "straight out of their doctorate." Moreover, Kellogg's Decision Sciences is kind of an outlier amongst business schools in terms of willingness to hire formal political theorists.

I don't know much of the trend across business schools, but Diermeier did get his first academic job (1994-; PhD in 1995) at Stanford GSB (with courtesy appointment at the Stanford Poli Sci department) before moving to Kellogg several years later.

[RWBG]

Yeah, although I don't think I'd call Stanford GSB's political economics a business school in anything other than name, and it looks like he was cross-listed in the political science department. I also want to continue to stress that both Diermeier and Feddersen (as well as Austen-Smith for that matter) are really unique/exceptional scholars from whom I think one should avoid making any generalizable inferences. Some of the top formal theorists in the world have ended up at Stanford GSB polecon and Kellogg Decision Sciences. Outside that very, very small subset, I don't think you'd find many other examples of this.

[catchermiscount]

C'mon, RWBG: clearly some of our most technically-inclined graduates qualify as "mainstream political scientists." I think everybody knows that ;-).

I wonder what McKelvey made?!

[Behavioral]

Yeah, although I don't think I'd call Stanford GSB's political economics a business school in anything other than name, and it looks like he was cross-listed in the political science department. I also want to continue to stress that both Diermeier and Feddersen (as well as Austen-Smith for that matter) are really unique/exceptional scholars from whom I think one should avoid making any generalizable inferences. Some of the top formal theorists in the world have ended up at Stanford GSB polecon and Kellogg Decision Sciences. Outside that very, very small subset, I don't think you'd find many other examples of this.

Ah. My bad, then. I've just bumped into some of these professors while attending guest talks and thought MEDS was at least a bit representative of the discipline in decision sciences. I guess Kellogg and SGSB are just frank outliers.

[TakeruK]

When I choose "4 year public schools" (aka "average"?) and then sort by Assistant Prof salaries, I see that the median value is around $60,000/year. The 25th percentile is $55k and the 75th percentile is around $68k. So it's not so far from your initial guess of $50k.

I'm not surprised that this is the starting salary for someone with 4 years (UG) + 5 years (PhD) + 4-6 years (postdocs) of combined education and work experience in the field though. $40k would be way too low for an entry level prof position -- my peers who have entered the workforce after their Bachelors make that much, and by the time I have gotten a PhD and several post-docs, they would have ~10 years of work experience and probably making much more.

[Wesson]

Several grad students in my department have accepted tenure-track jobs for next year, all at public universities. From what I've heard, the salary range is between right around $50,000 and the mid to high 70s. It's my understanding that entry-level salaries tend to increase faster than salaries at other ranks. For example, it apparently is common for a first-year assistant professor to make as much as or more than a fourth- or fifth-year assistant professor, and sometimes even more than a department's lowest-paid associate professors.