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Part of the story is new assistant professors in Business are paid an average of about $110K, while new assistant professors in CS are paid and average of under

Part of the story is new assistant professors in Business are paid an average of about $110K, while new assistant professors in CS are paid and average of under $90K. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/03/28/study-finds-continued-large-gaps-faculty-salaries-based-discipline https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/03/28/study-finds-c... The OP is based on this report: https://www.nap.edu/read/24926/chapter/1 https://www.nap.edu/read/24926/chapter/1, which is starting/pushing the conversation. They write: "RECOMMENDATION 2.1: Institutions experiencing a computer science enrollment surge should seriously consider an increase in resources to address the rising workload on faculty and staff in computer science and related departments, and the limitations arising from inadequate facilities." "RECOMMENDATION 2.3: Institutional leadership should engage directly with computer science departments or programs to develop appropriate faculty hiring and faculty size targets, and develop strategies to improve faculty retention. Increasing the number and enhancing the role of academic-rank teaching faculty should be given serious consideration." "RECOMMENDATION 2.4: Larger institutions—in particular, research universities—should reevaluate the organizational placement of the computer science department and other departmental units with a computational mission." Basically, "Give CS a better deal"

jeffreyrogers 8y ago
It's hard to fire someone or lower their salary when economic conditions change, so it makes sense for academia to be a bit conservative here. What happens if interest rates rise, VC funding goes down, and there are lots fewer tech jobs in the future? You're stuck with a bunch of high paid professors and low CS enrollment. There could be a structural change that from here on we'll need a larger number of CS professors, but I can see why the universities are being conservative.
- walshemj 8y ago
  I don't think "assistant professors" have tenure do they
  - mercutio2 8y ago
    True, but raising assistant professor’s salaries puts pressure on associate professor salaries, and they are tenured. Not to say the whole lot of them shouldn’t get raises; one thing missed in this discussion is that CS programs are counter-cyclical, when there’s a downturn in the tech industry and it’s hard to find a job, more candidates opt for getting a masters in CS instead of going into industry/finding a new job after a layoff.
    - sdenton4 8y ago
      There's a stupid amount of variation in academic compensation. I think a lot of it comes down to people early in the pipe having ludicrously low expectations, after many years of PhD stipends turning into a kinda laughable postdoc salary. People coming back from industry (eg, to business schools) know better how to negotiate and have higher expectations. But might have a harder time getting in the door from industry in STEM areas, because it's still pretty easy to get cheap kids from the postdoc pipeline. Here's the transparent california list of UC salaries: https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2016/university-of-california https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2016/university-o... The highest salaries are for surgeon profs, which, ok, sure, why not? Here's 50 prof's in the PROF-AY job with total comp >$450K; lots of them in econ, based on some light perusal. The very-tenured math profs I worked with seem to be in the range of ~$150K total comp, by comparison. https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=PROF-AY-B/E/E&y=2016 https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=PROF-AY...
- privacypoller 8y ago
  That's why they don't even hire professors - they just use sessionals which are essentially low-paid contractors. No long term commitment, no overhead

jeffreyrogers 8y ago

It's hard to fire someone or lower their salary when economic conditions change, so it makes sense for academia to be a bit conservative here. What happens if interest rates rise, VC funding goes down, and there are lots fewer tech jobs in the future? You're stuck with a bunch of high paid professors and low CS enrollment. There could be a structural change that from here on we'll need a larger number of CS professors, but I can see why the universities are being conservative.

walshemj 8y ago
I don't think "assistant professors" have tenure do they
- mercutio2 8y ago
  True, but raising assistant professor’s salaries puts pressure on associate professor salaries, and they are tenured. Not to say the whole lot of them shouldn’t get raises; one thing missed in this discussion is that CS programs are counter-cyclical, when there’s a downturn in the tech industry and it’s hard to find a job, more candidates opt for getting a masters in CS instead of going into industry/finding a new job after a layoff.
  - sdenton4 8y ago
    There's a stupid amount of variation in academic compensation. I think a lot of it comes down to people early in the pipe having ludicrously low expectations, after many years of PhD stipends turning into a kinda laughable postdoc salary. People coming back from industry (eg, to business schools) know better how to negotiate and have higher expectations. But might have a harder time getting in the door from industry in STEM areas, because it's still pretty easy to get cheap kids from the postdoc pipeline. Here's the transparent california list of UC salaries: https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2016/university-of-california https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2016/university-o... The highest salaries are for surgeon profs, which, ok, sure, why not? Here's 50 prof's in the PROF-AY job with total comp >$450K; lots of them in econ, based on some light perusal. The very-tenured math profs I worked with seem to be in the range of ~$150K total comp, by comparison. https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=PROF-AY-B/E/E&y=2016 https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=PROF-AY...
privacypoller 8y ago
That's why they don't even hire professors - they just use sessionals which are essentially low-paid contractors. No long term commitment, no overhead