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PhD Comics: Academic Salaries
- yters 18y agoIt's crazy how fanatic people are about sports. I know in Europe there are gangs that kill each other based on what soccer team they support. Is this just because we can't go out and make war on the neigboring village anymore?
- llimllib 18y agowhere's the companion graph of how much money each of those people bring in to the university?
- mechanical_fish 18y agoExcellent point. While you're at it, make sure to include the salaries of the players. Or are we applying corporate-compensation logic, in which all the money that a company brings in is credited to the CEO, who promptly gives himself a lavish raise?
- steveplace 18y agoIt's my opinion that college football players should receive salary, or at least be able to accept endorsement opportunities. There would be a decreased financial motivation to leave school early. There's a ton of downside to this, I know, but I don't think that universities should be regulating what sort of money their students bring in.
- streblo 18y agoThey receive salary in the form of a scholarship.
- cconstantine 18y agoThank you. Another way to look at it is that the university is 'paying' them with a free education, and 4 years with no financial obligations. Depending on the school, that has the potential for massive financial equivalents.
- mechanical_fish 18y agoI agree that a scholarship has a nonzero value. That said, let me propose a deal for you: Instead of being paid for your next four years of work, your employer gives the cash to a university. In return, the university gives you a four-year scholarship with a value equal to your deferred salary plus X%. Note that the scholarship is nontransferable, it cannot be deferred, and you cannot stretch it out over more than four years, unless the university agrees to give you a single extra "red-shirt" year. Also, if you quit your job, you lose the scholarship, so don't expect to be a full-time student unless you're really good at multitasking and don't need a lot of sleep. How large does X have to be before you accept this offer? My guess is that it is considerably higher than zero.
- cconstantine 18y agoRight, I think we're both in agreement here. To say that college athletes are unpaid workers isn't exactly true, but it also isn't entirely honest to say they're paid like a regular job. I responded to the parent of my post because it had been down-modded for simply saying scholarships are a form of payment. If I were a high-school kid coming from a family with very little ability to help pay for college I'd say that sounds like fantastic deal.
- Retric 18y agoPersonal I would have gone to Standford on an athletic scholarship that paid less than full tuition. Few collage players can compete in the MBA and there is not a lot of paths for people with that level of skill to may any money from their sport. Few people complain that doctors need to do an internship before they make the "big bucks" because even if they are paid less than they are "worth" they are still gaining non monetary compensation.
- steveplace 18y agoFine, I'll grant you that. But why are they not allowed to accept endorsements? It definitely pays better than being a bouncer at the local pub. Some of these guys come from financially destitute situations and will leave school the minute they hear NFL so they can support the rest of their family.
- te_platt 18y agoWhat are the downsides to paying student athletes?
- chairface 18y agoagents
- steveplace 18y agoIt could lead to a power imbalance with big schools.
- llimllib 18y agoYou're preaching to the choir, I think the athletes should get a share of the pie as well. Preferably, in fact, these unquestionably professional athletes would stop pretending to be students at all, with some sort of hybrid university-sports structure. (keeping in mind that this graph uses the top 150 college coaches; schools like Yale and Stanford unquestionably have true student athletes)
- eru 18y agoWhy intermingle sports and academia at all?
- wjy 18y agoExcellent question. The very best universities don't intermingle them... MIT, Caltech, Stanford come to mind. I know MIT has lots of intramural sports, where the focus is on healthy recreation for students. But they don't have ANY NCAA-style teams.
- andreyf 18y agoThat would be appropriate if universities were businesses with a responsibility to maximize profits and reward shareholders.
- jcl 18y agoTo be fair, the numbers are not directly comparable. The football coach salaries are only for division I teams, which most schools don't have; the mean and median football coach salaries over all schools is probably much lower, and the academic salaries at schools with division I teams may well be higher than average. In essence, this is comparing the average salary of the top 150 best-paid football coaches to the average for all academics. It would be interesting to see what the average of the top 150 academic salaries is.
- dangoldin 18y agoNot to mention the fact that many of the top 150 academics would have side income as consultants, expert witnesses, etc.
- shawndrost 18y agoIf you consider that, you have to consider the non-monetary benefits of being a football coach, which are probably huge.
- cstejerean 18y agoUnless the school is hiring them as consultants, etc it doesn't matter.
- thomasmallen 18y agoThe true injustice is how much money universities make on the backs of athletes who don't earn a red cent. And the coach salaries demonstrate the value of collegiate athletics, adding insult to real injuries.
- Alex3917 18y agoI don't understand this view that just because you're doing work you deserve to get paid. Rowing was the first amateur sport in the United States, and if you look back at the history of why Rowing when amateur in the late 1800s then you see there are some very good reasons. The reason the NCAA is amateur is because it creates a better experience for athletes. You don't have to worry about people fixing the games, getting stabbed, being pressured to take steroids, sports overshadowing schoolwork, etc. If athletes started earning a salary then you'd see a lot of the best student-athletes give up sports overnight. I certainly would have. Furthermore, schools aren't making money on the backs of athletes, they're raising money. That money doesn't get redistributed to shareholders, it gets added to the endowment and spent on the university. If anything student-athletes should get an income tax credit on their first X dollars earned after college rather than a check, basically a modified form of the tax credit they would get for any other charitable contribution.
- thomasmallen 18y agoThat's a very naive perspective. Briefly, * There is tremendous pressure to juice for any athlete who hopes to go pro or even be competitive. * People gamble heavily on collegiate athletics. Of course you have to worry about fixed games. * Look at USC, Miami, or just about any major sports school: The players barely have to attend class to remain eligible. * No, they're making money. Take a look at the salaries of coaches, athletic directors, and college presidents and think again. If universities cared about endowments, they'd spend the athletic dollars on academics, investing in contributions from future alumni. I highly recommend "What's My Name, Fool!", specifically the section on collegiate athletics (page 230). http://books.google.com/books?id=ut3M85a6yTMC&dq=What%27s+my+name,+fool&pg=PP1&ots=qpDGt6hEac&source=bn&sig=kEjOQBDaMbUH6EG5Cm3BOBzo9LA&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result http://books.google.com/books?id=ut3M85a6yTMC&dq=What%27...
- cabalamat 18y agoFor the benefit of non-American people like me, can someone explain what this thing with athletic scholarships in US universities is all about? To me it just seems silly, like a sports team having academic scholarships would be.
- arockwell 18y agoParticularly with football, the players would not be able to afford to go to college without a scholarship, nor get into college without receiving some preferential treatment.
- eru 18y agoThat does not answer the question. You could just pick poor bright kids to give scholarships to, instead of athletic kids.
- arockwell 18y agoI'm sorry, I think I might be misunderstanding you, so I'll try to elaborate some. Each athletic program has a certain number of scholarships they give out. In the case of football, these scholarships are awarded almost entirely without regard to the academic quality of the athlete. How true that last statement is varies greatly from school to school, but in general, they only need to meet some pretty minimum requirements. If your question is _why_ do schools do this its because football brings in a LOT of money. The same thing happens to a lesser extent with basketball, but for the most part other athletes of other sports have to earn there way in to school like everyone else.
- cabalamat 18y agoSo the universities do it because it's a money-making proposition?
- arockwell 18y agoYes, college football is insanely popular. I live in a county of 200k people that has absolutely no trouble filling up a stadium of 90k people for home games. The skyboxes sell in the millions, and the best seats in the stands require a 10k/year donation for the right to purchase them. TV deals are also very lucrative, and I would assume so is merchandise.
- alex_c 18y agoSure, this seems unjust, mainly because none of us are professional football coaches (I'm assuming). But I'm not sure what point the comic is trying to make, really. If this imbalance in pay pushed top academics to drop their career and switch to coaching football, I could understand the argument that it's harmful. I highly doubt that's the case.
- quantumhobbit 18y agoAs an academic in training(phd student), I would never want to be a football coach at a top school. The hours they have to work to remain competitive are insane. One bad season or embarrassing loss to a rival and you will be fired. I'll take the promise of tenure over the extra pay. Also as previous posts have stated the imbalance in pay is skewed by comparing top coaches with all academics. I'm pretty sure coaches at a Div III school are not paid in 7 figures, probably not even 6 figures.
- mattmaroon 18y agoI don't think I would take the promise of tenure over a job that pays me 12x the salary. Even most Div 1 coaches last more than 3 years. Also, it's far better to make $3 million in 3 years than it is to do so in 30.
- lutorm 18y agoWhere did you get a promise of tenure?
- biohacker42 18y agoYep, that's the way it is. Universities are only incidentally about knowledge and learning. Please do not confuse the grant money draw that is research with either teaching or learning. Clearly they are part of it but money is the main driver. Money is priority #1, that's why sports are so important. Money is important to students as well, the bulk of the income their degree will generate depends on the reputation of the school, not on how much they actually know. And that's when they are first entering the job market. After that first job, the only way college matters is through the relationships you built there. Obviously relationships you build at work matter more and more over time. And here again sports is important in creating that image of tribal success that draws the people that you want to connect with, to make it far in life after college. That's the way life and college work. If you don't like this harsh and cynical money based game, go to a school that doesn't have a sports program and be a scholar. And if you do that, don't ever think about money. If you do find yourself thinking about money, especially more then is needed to simply survive, then get an MBA... preferably from a school with a very successful sports program.
- petercooper 18y agoThat's true in the US, but sports has barely any importance at all in British universities (and perhaps applies to the EU generally). Okay, we all know about the Oxford vs Cambridge boat race, but beyond that, there's no public exposure to university sports. I think the focus on sports at US colleges says a lot about the US, rather than universities or the education system in general.
- davi 18y ago"Money is important to students as well, the bulk of the income their degree will generate depends on the reputation of the school, not on how much they actually know." Only for non-entrepreneurial types. I think for an entrepreneur (in whatever arena -- business, programming, scientific research), using college as a sort of pure, long-term investment in a general arsenal of facts and perspectives can actually pay off very nicely in the long run. Time will tell if I'm right....
- mattmaroon 18y agoI once read that the highest paid employee of 20 some states is a college football coach. I know it's true in good old Ohio.