3 ms·
Re underpaid researchers: The part that is always unclear to me is: there is lot of evidence that research/university budgets are growing at a high rate. Where
by nn3 13y ago
Re underpaid researchers:
The part that is always unclear to me is: there is lot of evidence that research/university budgets are growing at a high rate. Where does all that money go to. It doesn't seem to go to the people who actually do science.
That seems to be the fundamental problem here.
- DaveWalk 13y agoThis is a trend that stretches well back 50 years, some say to the establishment of the postwar DoD funding system. I recommend Paula Stephan's How Economics Shapes Science[1] for a comprehensive view of both the underpaid and increasing budget trends you mention. (The bottom line is that the money goes to administration costs as mentioned, leading institutions to expand to stay relevant, thus building more buildings and hiring more PIs with full expectation for them to be funded via grants. Meanwhile, the average researcher's earnings are mostly unchanged.) [1]http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Shapes-Science-Paula-Stephan/dp/0674049713 http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Shapes-Science-Paula-Stephan...
- dnautics 13y ago"overhead", i.e. administration. I told someone that I was a postdoc, he estimated my salary at first six figures. Then I told him down. He said 75k. When I told him 45k, his eyes bugged out and he said 'there's something wrong here'. I mean, I come from an excellent pedigree, too, top 10 undergraduate, top 10 grad school, and I currently work at a place where my boss is a nobel laureate. (He makes at least 250k, according to the place's 990 forms) However, my going price gets diluted by the idiots running around with rubber-stamped PhDs. Maybe there needs to be a 'brain drain', if we can drain those people selectively somehow.
- lost_marbles 13y agoI'm really confused - why don't Ph.D.'s with excellent pedigrees just get paid more money than "idiots running around with rubber-stamped PhD.s"? Maybe the market doesn't see such a big difference..
- ananduri 13y agoI think you are right lost_marbles. The difference between a PhD with an excellent pedigree and a rubber-stamped PhD should be their publication records. The problem would still exist if these rubber-stamped PhDs weren't there, I think. As a postdoc, you're going to get paid zilch, period.
- zhemao 13y agoIt goes towards hiring more administrators to chase that grant money they need to make the budget even bigger.