this search began because a chemist uncle of mine was curious as to what he could have made if he went into academia instead of industry .. and were successful

this search began because a chemist uncle of mine was curious as to what he could have made if he went into academia instead of industry .. and were successful in academia, instead of industry. The University of Minnesota is certainly not a top school and the professors are by no means superstars, so their salaries were surprising. UMN is actually up there in certain medical subfields (according to USNews, it's in the 30s overall, and #5 in primary care). In any case, as I said, med and business schools are in general a special case -- they have to compete with high salaries to begin with, and they can afford it -- professional students tend to pay their way. However, the two tenured research professors at UPMC (which is up there as far as med school rankings go) whose salaries I happen to know, make way less than 200K. And as far as I know, tenure no longer comes with a guarantee of salary -- you have to get your own funding, i.e. get lots of grants. In any case, I hope you get your 'vacation' and it turns out to be everything you expect )