Many professors work for free… it’s called an unpaid adjunct position. You’d be surprised how extremely common it is- students paying a ton and the professors u

Many professors work for free… it’s called an unpaid adjunct position. You’d be surprised how extremely common it is- students paying a ton and the professors unpaid. Often they are doing it for experience hoping to move into a paid position someday, which are in short supply… or they have multiple jobs and the other one is related in some way and pays, but being a professor has advantages such as students that will work for you for free, and the ability to use the university’s name when writing grants and papers. I knew a humanities professor that taught a heavy course load for years, and he and his wife lived off her paycheck serving food in the university cafeteria. Sometimes getting an unpaid adjunct position can still be extremely competitive and hard to get. Academia is pretty weird.