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Many liberal arts schools pay everyone like they are liberal arts professors. So they have impossible time hiring people in valuable professional fields like CS

Many liberal arts schools pay everyone like they are liberal arts professors. So they have impossible time hiring people in valuable professional fields like CS and statistics. They still can get solid students though. Disproportionately locals and by offering scholarships. Also prior hot areas like "data science" and security indeed led to a lot of insane starting salary stories ($300k+) for merely-above-average students from meh schools with exactly the right skills. Even the median starting salaries in hot areas have been surprisingly high for a while. > If CS PhD's are an exceptional class then I think it's only by virtue of supply & demand. There are a larger # of opportunities in industry, and they often pay better. Well of course. What else would it be? Doesn't it always work out in life that the jobs you can get are the ones where they need you more than you need them?

dragonwriter 5y ago
> Many liberal arts schools pay everyone like they are liberal arts professors. Presumably, you mean something like “arts and humanities” the second time you say “liberal arts”, since the liberal arts include the natural sciences (both life and physical), social sciences, mathematics (including, among other things, computer science), arts, and humanities.
- simplestats 5y ago
  You can be a "liberal arts" professor yet get paid like a professor in a professional department. Many schools have CS under engineering which pays a lot more.
- deleted 5y ago
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- throwawaygh 5y ago
  Nah, I think "liberal arts" fits the bill. Including natural sciences. In contrast to the professional colleges: Law/Business/Medicine/Engineering (which CS should be at-parity with). Of course LACs don't have law schools or med schools or (usually) engineering colleges, so the difficulty of properly compensating CS is understandable with respect to those fields. However, LACs do tend to have Finance/Accounting, and often pay folks in those departments better, but for whatever reason don't treat their CS faculty like their Finance faculty. My own pet theory for this market mismatch is that finance/business types tend to dominate those college's boards. LAC boards have a lot of older folks who still think of CS as code monkeying.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Many liberal arts schools pay everyone like they are liberal arts professors. Presumably, you mean something like “arts and humanities” the second time you say “liberal arts”, since the liberal arts include the natural sciences (both life and physical), social sciences, mathematics (including, among other things, computer science), arts, and humanities.

simplestats 5y ago
You can be a "liberal arts" professor yet get paid like a professor in a professional department. Many schools have CS under engineering which pays a lot more.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
throwawaygh 5y ago
Nah, I think "liberal arts" fits the bill. Including natural sciences. In contrast to the professional colleges: Law/Business/Medicine/Engineering (which CS should be at-parity with). Of course LACs don't have law schools or med schools or (usually) engineering colleges, so the difficulty of properly compensating CS is understandable with respect to those fields. However, LACs do tend to have Finance/Accounting, and often pay folks in those departments better, but for whatever reason don't treat their CS faculty like their Finance faculty. My own pet theory for this market mismatch is that finance/business types tend to dominate those college's boards. LAC boards have a lot of older folks who still think of CS as code monkeying.