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At my last job, all salaries were public record, and some dude even put together a website (https://umsalary.info https://umsalary.info) to make searching easie

At my last job, all salaries were public record, and some dude even put together a website (https://umsalary.info https://umsalary.info) to make searching easier. Want to know what some internal career change might look like? Just take a look. Want to see what career path got someone else to where they are? Take a look. Want to know if you are being underpaid/discriminated against? Click on the job title next to your name and see where you stand compared to all employees with the same role. At a place where Diversity Equity and Inclusion is a stated goal I think this works well. I also know that people don't always get paid the same amount, and (as I often explain to my six-year-old) fair doesn't mean the everything has to be equal, but it is very useful to know where you stand. At my new job, the information on Levels seemed accurate based on my offer, and I was very happy with it.

vibien 5y ago
One thing that surprised me is that the highest salaried employees seem to be in Athletics ( https://umsalary.info/numbers.php https://umsalary.info/numbers.php ). Is it something specific to that particular university or a normal thing in the US universities?
- mmoche 5y ago
  Extremely typical. There are cases where the highest paid employee in an entire _state_ is an athletics coach at a state university.
  - oneweekwonder 5y ago
    I was flabbergasted to learn Nick Saban from University of Alabama makes $9.3 million annually(2019)[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Saban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Saban
    - listenallyall 5y ago
      too much or too little?
      - munk-a 5y ago
        Too much - universities obviously benefit a lot from the revenue that sports bring in but it'd be nice to see that benefit spread a bit more evenly across professors.
        JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > universities obviously benefit a lot from the revenue that sports bring in but it'd be nice to see that benefit spread a bit more evenly across professors Professors can't do what he does: bring in big-ticket spending, sponsorships and donations.
        munk-a 5y ago
        This is true - but professors provide the real value that students retain over time - so admissions fees should pretty much all be funneled to them. This is a problem with how hard to market the value professors provide is - a lot of admissions care more about a good sports team than a good set of professors even though the later factor will be much more important to them two years in. Basically, people don't act rationally so the market is irrational.
        JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > professors provide the real value that students retain over time - so admissions fees should pretty much all be funneled to them I wouldn't so quickly ignore the additional tuition revenue athletics departments bring in at non-Tier 1 schools. University athletics are a weird thing. But if the pay bothers you, think of it as a commission. Going cheap on that will likely cost more than it saves.
    - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
      I think the broader point for the HN crowd is this is a great example of why you want to be part of a profit center instead of a cost center in a business. If it's easy for management to try a direct line from incoming revenue to the work you do (like a sales person or, in this case, a football coach), you are in a great negotiating position. If you are in a cost center, management will do everything possible to reduce your salary, even if it the grand scheme of things that cost center is critical to running the business.
      - dwaltrip 5y ago
        One can also try to work for companies that properly appreciate the value of all necessary components of the business, even if one can't directly tally their contribution. Most important factors to success are not easily measurable.
      - cycomanic 5y ago
        The irony is that the people who do the central work for the business, academics at the University, engineers designing the next products, even factory workers often are often cost centres. This leads to the somewhat perverse insentive to remove more and more of your central workers to hire managers and administrators.
  - j_walter 5y ago
    ...or the Athletic Director. Unfortunately that can usually cost the state long after they are gone as the retirement system is usually setup based on final salaries. In the case of the State of Oregon the 3rd highest paid PERS recipient is Mike Belotti who was the head football coach for 13 years and then AD for 2 years. He gets almost $50K/month in retirement. The only two higher recipients are doctors that worked for the state more than twice as long as Belotti. https://gov.oregonlive.com/pers/ https://gov.oregonlive.com/pers/
- solarhoma 5y ago
  Athletics typically brings in the most revenue and exposure for a university. I do not agree with these programs being so handsomely rewarded. But it seems most of America disagrees based on college football viewership.
  - gamblor956 5y ago
    At many schools, the football and/or basketball programs literally fund all other athletics programs...including the scholarships for those other athletes. Some schools, like LSU, have reported a 100x return or greater on their investment in their football coaches salaries, with respect to increased alumni donations, memorabilia sales, etc.
    - dstaley 5y ago
      LSU alum here, and I can confirm that our athletic performance is a rising tide. It's my understanding though that LSU athletics pays employees from its own revenue. So it's not like LSU is diverting funds meant for academics to athletics (in the macro sense). As an alum I frequently get asked to donate to the LSU Foundation which is an entity separate from the Tiger Athletic Foundation, which is where you can donate specifically to the athletic department.
  - HideousKojima 5y ago
    Technically only men's football and men's basketball are usually profitable for universities. Most other sports programs are run at a loss, and funded by football and basketball.
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  Collegiate athletics, especially at the highest division (which University of Michigan is in), can be lucrative revenue streams, particularly in football/basketball; top positions within are compensated nicely.
- arrosenberg 5y ago
  The basketball or (American) football coach will be the most highly compensated individual at most tier 1 athletics schools
  - deleted 5y ago
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- deleted 5y ago
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- m-watson 5y ago
  Yea it is pretty common in US universities, coaches are also often the highest paid in the state. https://moneywise.com/managing-money/employment/the-10-highest-paid-state-employees https://moneywise.com/managing-money/employment/the-10-highe...
- vultour 5y ago
  I found a similar website for a different university a few weeks ago and have been shocked by the same thing. Some of the people had total compensation listed at over $3 million which is a completely insane number if you're not from the US.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  College athletics are an entertainment industry grafted onto an educational institution. They bring in an enormous amount of revenue, and must employ star power to compete. Star power costs money. It's best to not think of athletics as part of the university at all, except when they start to lose money and become parasitic.
- slownews45 5y ago
  Normal - a reminder that US Football probably brings in a LOT more money than a soccer club at an german university. ESPN is doing something like $5B (billion) at maybe $450M per year going forward for the SEC conference? Some parts of that deal are going up 3x+. https://www.sportico.com/leagues/college-sports/2020/sec-espn-sign-deal-full-rights-1234618121/ https://www.sportico.com/leagues/college-sports/2020/sec-esp... So it's been going up like crazy. The key thing is to get the athletes paid in my view. These sports are not your average rec league type pickup games. That ties into massive fundraising by university that rides the back of these games.
- mturmon 5y ago
  In universities with teaching hospitals, it's common for doctors or medical directors within the hospital to be very well-compensated (>$1M/year, say).
nightski 5y ago
Frankly, I'll never work for a company with public pay. I don't want equality, I want to be able to negotiate my value to the company whether that is more or less than others. This is why I became a freelancer years ago and have vastly increased my income. I'm paid for the value I provided the company's bottom line, not some arbitrary "equal" amount based on an arbitrary title as a cog in the machine.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Afforess 5y ago
  You are making the argument that public pay reduces the upper window on merit-based compensation. This may even be true! However, consider the other group of people this helps. Minorities, H1B holders, other commonly discriminated classes, who discover they are doing the same work as a colleague and being payed 1/3 the rate. Should these folks get screwed over so you can get your negotiated high pay? Has the trade off even been considered? I'm not saying you're wrong. I just want to make clear what the other side is arguing for - and it's not some evil plot to screw you in particular. It's to help a different group.
  - zepto 5y ago
    > it's not some evil plot to screw you in particular It might not be an ‘evil plot’, but corporations routinely support wage suppressing measures.
  - Veen 5y ago
    > Should these folks get screwed over so you can get your negotiated high pay? They’re not getting screwed over. They’re getting paid what they agreed to when they took the job, just like everyone else is.
    - fnimick 5y ago
      And it's an unethical system where people who have leverage end up able to negotiate more pay for the same output than people who do not. I suspect that if you weren't in a privileged position, you'd be upset about the disparity too.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
"At my last job, all salaries were public record, and some dude even put together a website (https://umsalary.info https://umsalary.info) to make searching easier." State employers, such as state universities, are generally1 required by state law to make data they generate, including salary data, available for public inspection. The penalties for non-compliance may be criminal as well as civil.2 Thus the incentives to make salary data available, as well as its purpose, are clear (the purpose is government transparency, not employees personal interests around their careers). This rationale for making salaries public and the incentive for complying pre-date the emergence of "diversity and inclusion" policies. In contrast, private entities are under no such legal obligation to make salary data available. Perhaps that may change in the future but it will never be the same as what is required by "open government" laws, like the one that required the parents salary to be public information. As for the OP, US labour laws do not place any affirmative obligation on private entities to share salary data. It is true that its illegal to prevent employees from sharing data, but how much much incentive is there to comply when the only "penalty" is reinstatement and backpay. There is arguably more incentive to make employees believe they should keep quiet about their salaries. Historically, that has not been difficult to do in the US since it has been part of the culture. 1 I would guess there are no exceptions but I have not checked every state. 2 http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/openmtg.pdf http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/openmtg.pdf

vibien 5y ago

One thing that surprised me is that the highest salaried employees seem to be in Athletics ( https://umsalary.info/numbers.php https://umsalary.info/numbers.php ). Is it something specific to that particular university or a normal thing in the US universities?

mmoche 5y ago
Extremely typical. There are cases where the highest paid employee in an entire _state_ is an athletics coach at a state university.
- oneweekwonder 5y ago
  I was flabbergasted to learn Nick Saban from University of Alabama makes $9.3 million annually(2019)[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Saban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Saban
  - listenallyall 5y ago
    too much or too little?
    - munk-a 5y ago
      Too much - universities obviously benefit a lot from the revenue that sports bring in but it'd be nice to see that benefit spread a bit more evenly across professors.
      - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > universities obviously benefit a lot from the revenue that sports bring in but it'd be nice to see that benefit spread a bit more evenly across professors Professors can't do what he does: bring in big-ticket spending, sponsorships and donations.
        munk-a 5y ago
        This is true - but professors provide the real value that students retain over time - so admissions fees should pretty much all be funneled to them. This is a problem with how hard to market the value professors provide is - a lot of admissions care more about a good sports team than a good set of professors even though the later factor will be much more important to them two years in. Basically, people don't act rationally so the market is irrational.
        JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > professors provide the real value that students retain over time - so admissions fees should pretty much all be funneled to them I wouldn't so quickly ignore the additional tuition revenue athletics departments bring in at non-Tier 1 schools. University athletics are a weird thing. But if the pay bothers you, think of it as a commission. Going cheap on that will likely cost more than it saves.
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    I think the broader point for the HN crowd is this is a great example of why you want to be part of a profit center instead of a cost center in a business. If it's easy for management to try a direct line from incoming revenue to the work you do (like a sales person or, in this case, a football coach), you are in a great negotiating position. If you are in a cost center, management will do everything possible to reduce your salary, even if it the grand scheme of things that cost center is critical to running the business.
    - dwaltrip 5y ago
      One can also try to work for companies that properly appreciate the value of all necessary components of the business, even if one can't directly tally their contribution. Most important factors to success are not easily measurable.
    - cycomanic 5y ago
      The irony is that the people who do the central work for the business, academics at the University, engineers designing the next products, even factory workers often are often cost centres. This leads to the somewhat perverse insentive to remove more and more of your central workers to hire managers and administrators.
- j_walter 5y ago
  ...or the Athletic Director. Unfortunately that can usually cost the state long after they are gone as the retirement system is usually setup based on final salaries. In the case of the State of Oregon the 3rd highest paid PERS recipient is Mike Belotti who was the head football coach for 13 years and then AD for 2 years. He gets almost $50K/month in retirement. The only two higher recipients are doctors that worked for the state more than twice as long as Belotti. https://gov.oregonlive.com/pers/ https://gov.oregonlive.com/pers/
solarhoma 5y ago
Athletics typically brings in the most revenue and exposure for a university. I do not agree with these programs being so handsomely rewarded. But it seems most of America disagrees based on college football viewership.
- gamblor956 5y ago
  At many schools, the football and/or basketball programs literally fund all other athletics programs...including the scholarships for those other athletes. Some schools, like LSU, have reported a 100x return or greater on their investment in their football coaches salaries, with respect to increased alumni donations, memorabilia sales, etc.
  - dstaley 5y ago
    LSU alum here, and I can confirm that our athletic performance is a rising tide. It's my understanding though that LSU athletics pays employees from its own revenue. So it's not like LSU is diverting funds meant for academics to athletics (in the macro sense). As an alum I frequently get asked to donate to the LSU Foundation which is an entity separate from the Tiger Athletic Foundation, which is where you can donate specifically to the athletic department.
- HideousKojima 5y ago
  Technically only men's football and men's basketball are usually profitable for universities. Most other sports programs are run at a loss, and funded by football and basketball.
JohnWhigham 5y ago
Collegiate athletics, especially at the highest division (which University of Michigan is in), can be lucrative revenue streams, particularly in football/basketball; top positions within are compensated nicely.
arrosenberg 5y ago
The basketball or (American) football coach will be the most highly compensated individual at most tier 1 athletics schools
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
m-watson 5y ago
Yea it is pretty common in US universities, coaches are also often the highest paid in the state. https://moneywise.com/managing-money/employment/the-10-highest-paid-state-employees https://moneywise.com/managing-money/employment/the-10-highe...
vultour 5y ago
I found a similar website for a different university a few weeks ago and have been shocked by the same thing. Some of the people had total compensation listed at over $3 million which is a completely insane number if you're not from the US.
pessimizer 5y ago
College athletics are an entertainment industry grafted onto an educational institution. They bring in an enormous amount of revenue, and must employ star power to compete. Star power costs money. It's best to not think of athletics as part of the university at all, except when they start to lose money and become parasitic.
slownews45 5y ago
Normal - a reminder that US Football probably brings in a LOT more money than a soccer club at an german university. ESPN is doing something like $5B (billion) at maybe $450M per year going forward for the SEC conference? Some parts of that deal are going up 3x+. https://www.sportico.com/leagues/college-sports/2020/sec-espn-sign-deal-full-rights-1234618121/ https://www.sportico.com/leagues/college-sports/2020/sec-esp... So it's been going up like crazy. The key thing is to get the athletes paid in my view. These sports are not your average rec league type pickup games. That ties into massive fundraising by university that rides the back of these games.
mturmon 5y ago
In universities with teaching hospitals, it's common for doctors or medical directors within the hospital to be very well-compensated (>$1M/year, say).

nightski 5y ago

Frankly, I'll never work for a company with public pay. I don't want equality, I want to be able to negotiate my value to the company whether that is more or less than others. This is why I became a freelancer years ago and have vastly increased my income. I'm paid for the value I provided the company's bottom line, not some arbitrary "equal" amount based on an arbitrary title as a cog in the machine.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Afforess 5y ago
You are making the argument that public pay reduces the upper window on merit-based compensation. This may even be true! However, consider the other group of people this helps. Minorities, H1B holders, other commonly discriminated classes, who discover they are doing the same work as a colleague and being payed 1/3 the rate. Should these folks get screwed over so you can get your negotiated high pay? Has the trade off even been considered? I'm not saying you're wrong. I just want to make clear what the other side is arguing for - and it's not some evil plot to screw you in particular. It's to help a different group.
- zepto 5y ago
  > it's not some evil plot to screw you in particular It might not be an ‘evil plot’, but corporations routinely support wage suppressing measures.
- Veen 5y ago
  > Should these folks get screwed over so you can get your negotiated high pay? They’re not getting screwed over. They’re getting paid what they agreed to when they took the job, just like everyone else is.
  - fnimick 5y ago
    And it's an unethical system where people who have leverage end up able to negotiate more pay for the same output than people who do not. I suspect that if you weren't in a privileged position, you'd be upset about the disparity too.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

"At my last job, all salaries were public record, and some dude even put together a website (https://umsalary.info https://umsalary.info) to make searching easier." State employers, such as state universities, are generally1 required by state law to make data they generate, including salary data, available for public inspection. The penalties for non-compliance may be criminal as well as civil.2 Thus the incentives to make salary data available, as well as its purpose, are clear (the purpose is government transparency, not employees personal interests around their careers). This rationale for making salaries public and the incentive for complying pre-date the emergence of "diversity and inclusion" policies. In contrast, private entities are under no such legal obligation to make salary data available. Perhaps that may change in the future but it will never be the same as what is required by "open government" laws, like the one that required the parents salary to be public information. As for the OP, US labour laws do not place any affirmative obligation on private entities to share salary data. It is true that its illegal to prevent employees from sharing data, but how much much incentive is there to comply when the only "penalty" is reinstatement and backpay. There is arguably more incentive to make employees believe they should keep quiet about their salaries. Historically, that has not been difficult to do in the US since it has been part of the culture. 1 I would guess there are no exceptions but I have not checked every state. 2 http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/openmtg.pdf http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/openmtg.pdf