IDK what university you're talking about. When I was a PhD student, I worked 60 to 80 hour weeks doing research and teaching. My advisor brought in much more g

IDK what university you're talking about. When I was a PhD student, I worked 60 to 80 hour weeks doing research and teaching. My advisor brought in much more grant money than was spent on our lab equipment/salaries (and worked even hard than we did!) Our lab ran a (pretty healthy) profit, even before considering tuition and patent royalties. I spent some time teaching. Again, 60 hour weeks and all of my advisees landed six figure jobs after graduating. To the extent that the sort of institution you describe exists (low accountability), those professors are probably making less than the high school teachers in the same town. For example, an assistant professor at UCMO makes $50K-$60K; a high school teacher with several years of experience and a phd in Missouri makes closer to $70K-$80K (and with a much better pension): https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=UNIVERSITY+OF+CENTRAL+MISSOURI https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=UNIVERSITY+OF+CENTRAL+MISS... And in terms of time/effort, the two jobs are pretty comparable. The well-paid lazy professor doesn't really exist anymore, at least in STEM. Professors are either well-paid researchers expected to bring in substantial grant money (which is a hard job with long hours), or they are relatively poorly paid teachers.