4 ms·

I know, that was such naive answer considering the answer is so obvious. The problem isn't that these companies are offering huge amounts of money, it's that t

by mrep 9y ago

I know, that was such naive answer considering the answer is so obvious. The problem isn't that these companies are offering huge amounts of money, it's that the universities are ignoring the market signs and not raising pay. I find this odd though because at my school, all the professors who taught lucrative fields (engineering, cs, business) were paid much higher than the other ones because they wouldn't be able to retain them otherwise.

kuschku 9y ago
No university can compete with the pay that these big companies can offer. This becomes especially an issue in continental Europe, where private universities are basically unheard of. Do you want your tax money to pay many many times more for a single professor at a university, than for even the head of state?
- lucozade 9y ago
  They don't have to compete on pay though. But they do need to pay enough to stop the poor buggers feeling like paupers in an expensive city. Much more importantly, though, is that there need to be genuine and clear opportunities for career advancement. Somehow, we've got ourselves in a situation where some of our brightest people are paid crap, in crap conditions with crap prospects. And then are surprised when they are attracted elsewhere.
- netheril96 9y ago
  Football coaches at American universities are frequently paid much more than heads of state. Paying professors more doesn't seem like a travesty, at least compared to that.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    That's justifiable if the university is funded through tuition fees, but it's an entirely different situation with a university that is 100% funded by taxes.
    - chrisbennet 9y ago
      Public universities seem to have no problem paying competitive pay for university presidents.[1] Is that justified and if so, why not pay competitive pay to faculty as well? [1] "The average public college president earned just over $428,000 in 2014" http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/07/pf/college/highest-paid-public-university-presidents/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/07/pf/college/highest-paid-publ...
      - kuschku 9y ago
        http://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/was-uni-chefs-verdienen-aerger-um-schnell-steigende-gehaelter-der-uni-rektoren/9531172.html http://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/was-uni-chefs-verdienen-ae... The highest paid university president in Germany earns about 150'000 EUR per year, including all boni. Data from 2014. Now remember that Professors will certainly earn less, and try to compete with Google, which will pay even an entry level developer more.
- mrep 9y ago
  Private universities can and do compete for the talent. In fact, my school added an extra fee for engineers to help pay for the higher professor salaries which was easily beared because we all new what great pay we would get after college to pay off the loans. As for non private universities, well that's just what happens when socialists and capitalists compete for scarce resources.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    > As for non private universities, well that's just what happens when socialists and capitalists compete for scarce resources. I'm going to try to interpret this as favorably as possible. The goal of the education system in a country is to provide everyone with a good education, so that a person's success in life is only dependent on their own actions, and not on what university or school their parents could afford. To do that, you have to be able to acquire and retain talent. This wasn't an issue until research started to move more and more into the private sector. When research is done in companies, it becomes hard to have professors that teach and research at the same time, as they do at universities. Even harder when wages become competitive.
    - peoplewindow 9y ago
      Companies have always done research. Most of computing was developed in the private sector, not by universities. Xerox PARC, IBM etc. There's no reason education has to be provided entirely by the state. In voucher schemes the state takes a slice of people's taxes and gives it back to them in the form of use-limited credits that can only be spent on e.g. education. Mandatory insurance schemes are similar in concept. You can have entirely private provision in such a scheme. Price controls result in shortages rather than everyone benefiting equally - this always happens, and in this case the price controls on academic pay are resulting in a shortage of academics.
      - kuschku 9y ago
        Companies have only done research in the post-WWII world in any major way. Before that it was mostly independent researchers, or ones employed at places such as the Prussian Academy of Sciences. And in that model, research was open and public. In today's world, research is jept secret, never published, but a software patent is created based on the use case, so that the company can sue whoever copies it, but never has to publish either (software patents do not require publishing implementation detail, in contrast to real patents). If that is good is an entirely different question (and I think it's not). > There's no reason education has to be provided entirely by the state. In voucher schemes the state takes a slice of people's taxes and gives it back to them in the form of use-limited credits that can only be spent on e.g. education. That's basically what the US model already does, and it leads to ever growing tuition fees, and people far over their head in debt before they even leave university.
- thriftwy 9y ago
  I would like to abandon most of regulation and cut a lot of jobs in administration of said university. And then buy top notch to-be-professors' time by an hour. Make them compete one against another if there's a choice. All kinds of paper-pushing regulations have to go now, along with people who carved nice positions for them to do said paper pushing, because it's public money completely down the toilet.

by mrep 9y ago

kuschku 9y ago

No university can compete with the pay that these big companies can offer. This becomes especially an issue in continental Europe, where private universities are basically unheard of. Do you want your tax money to pay many many times more for a single professor at a university, than for even the head of state?

lucozade 9y ago
They don't have to compete on pay though. But they do need to pay enough to stop the poor buggers feeling like paupers in an expensive city. Much more importantly, though, is that there need to be genuine and clear opportunities for career advancement. Somehow, we've got ourselves in a situation where some of our brightest people are paid crap, in crap conditions with crap prospects. And then are surprised when they are attracted elsewhere.
netheril96 9y ago
Football coaches at American universities are frequently paid much more than heads of state. Paying professors more doesn't seem like a travesty, at least compared to that.
- kuschku 9y ago
  That's justifiable if the university is funded through tuition fees, but it's an entirely different situation with a university that is 100% funded by taxes.
  - chrisbennet 9y ago
    Public universities seem to have no problem paying competitive pay for university presidents.[1] Is that justified and if so, why not pay competitive pay to faculty as well? [1] "The average public college president earned just over $428,000 in 2014" http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/07/pf/college/highest-paid-public-university-presidents/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/07/pf/college/highest-paid-publ...
    - kuschku 9y ago
      http://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/was-uni-chefs-verdienen-aerger-um-schnell-steigende-gehaelter-der-uni-rektoren/9531172.html http://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/was-uni-chefs-verdienen-ae... The highest paid university president in Germany earns about 150'000 EUR per year, including all boni. Data from 2014. Now remember that Professors will certainly earn less, and try to compete with Google, which will pay even an entry level developer more.
mrep 9y ago
Private universities can and do compete for the talent. In fact, my school added an extra fee for engineers to help pay for the higher professor salaries which was easily beared because we all new what great pay we would get after college to pay off the loans. As for non private universities, well that's just what happens when socialists and capitalists compete for scarce resources.
- kuschku 9y ago
  > As for non private universities, well that's just what happens when socialists and capitalists compete for scarce resources. I'm going to try to interpret this as favorably as possible. The goal of the education system in a country is to provide everyone with a good education, so that a person's success in life is only dependent on their own actions, and not on what university or school their parents could afford. To do that, you have to be able to acquire and retain talent. This wasn't an issue until research started to move more and more into the private sector. When research is done in companies, it becomes hard to have professors that teach and research at the same time, as they do at universities. Even harder when wages become competitive.
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    Companies have always done research. Most of computing was developed in the private sector, not by universities. Xerox PARC, IBM etc. There's no reason education has to be provided entirely by the state. In voucher schemes the state takes a slice of people's taxes and gives it back to them in the form of use-limited credits that can only be spent on e.g. education. Mandatory insurance schemes are similar in concept. You can have entirely private provision in such a scheme. Price controls result in shortages rather than everyone benefiting equally - this always happens, and in this case the price controls on academic pay are resulting in a shortage of academics.
    - kuschku 9y ago
      Companies have only done research in the post-WWII world in any major way. Before that it was mostly independent researchers, or ones employed at places such as the Prussian Academy of Sciences. And in that model, research was open and public. In today's world, research is jept secret, never published, but a software patent is created based on the use case, so that the company can sue whoever copies it, but never has to publish either (software patents do not require publishing implementation detail, in contrast to real patents). If that is good is an entirely different question (and I think it's not). > There's no reason education has to be provided entirely by the state. In voucher schemes the state takes a slice of people's taxes and gives it back to them in the form of use-limited credits that can only be spent on e.g. education. That's basically what the US model already does, and it leads to ever growing tuition fees, and people far over their head in debt before they even leave university.
thriftwy 9y ago
I would like to abandon most of regulation and cut a lot of jobs in administration of said university. And then buy top notch to-be-professors' time by an hour. Make them compete one against another if there's a choice. All kinds of paper-pushing regulations have to go now, along with people who carved nice positions for them to do said paper pushing, because it's public money completely down the toilet.