4 ms·

As a brief anecdote, I was completely shocked by what some professors earned at the public university I attended. I had several standard professors in finance a

• eitally 16y ago
  These high salaries -- medical/law/architecture/business/etc are the same way -- are required in order to lure the superstars into academia and away from private practice. The highest paid professors at my public university were paid $500k+, with the top handful being at $1m +/-$100k.
  • _delirium 16y ago
    That's definitely the reason, but I'm not sure it's always worth it. The fact that someone can earn $1m in the private sector doesn't automatically mean that they'll provide $1m worth of value to any university that hires them; the skills aren't identical. Might be less true in areas where being prominent is a ticket to bringing in a ton of grant money; some famous medical researchers essentially pay their own salary out of grants, in which case from the university's perspective they're free.
• joeyo 16y ago
  This is a because a professor of finance or accounting also has the credentials to be a CFO (or even CEO). They're in demand and that's the price that the market will bear. There is probably a similar effect in computer science, engineering, medicine and related fields.
  • bobf 16y ago
    Of course. Most people just don't think you can earn that kind of income in academia.