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I beg to differ. You can make a significant amount of money as an academic in Australia if you are in the right discipline to get a market loading and be able t

I beg to differ. You can make a significant amount of money as an academic in Australia if you are in the right discipline to get a market loading and be able to do consulting on the side. AU$200-300K a year is easy to achieve for these academics some are even pulling in $500K+ by the end of their career. Plus the 17% superannuation means you'll retire with a nice big pot of retirement money at the end. Very hard to find a comparable position in industry...

1stop 11y ago
Which discipline are you speaking of? That kind of money I've only heard of in finance land (for academics)... and that kind of dried up after 2008.
- daleroberts 11y ago
  Yes, Finance is the biggest and the money still flows. Look at all the recent hires in Finance at UNSW and UMelb who have been appointed at the Senior Lecturer level straight after PhD. Market loadings are paid in Medecine too. Probably Law as well... I've also heard that Statistics and doing Machine Learning consulting on side is good too. What surprised me the most is all the arts/sociology academics doing big consulting contracts connected to "foreign aid" work.
sillygeese 11y ago
Ah yes, fat salaries on other people's money, and a fat pension on other people's money! Sweet deal!
- 1stop 11y ago
  ... That describes every job... ever. Unless you are the one stealing the resources directly from the land... in which case: Fat salaries on other peoples' property. But hey, hate on the academics, they are the WORST! right?
  - loup-vaillant 11y ago
    > That describes every job... ever Wait, what? Most jobs give you a salary, sure, but you nearly always end up producing far more value than you are paid back. The thieves are the shareholders of the company you serve. (As for the land… not every piece of land is someone's property —and that's good.)
    - saalweachter 11y ago
      If you are producing more value than you are being paid for, why are you working there?
      - chucksmash 11y ago
        What alternative are you suggesting? salesman who sells $100,000 in product a year should get paid $150,000 a year? Unless you are part of a cost center, it seems to me the assumption is that you are producing more value than you cost to employ.
        1stop 11y ago
        Or people get paid their value, and we stop thinking it's okay for a select few to reap the surplus value of others... you know, kind of like how we got rid of slavery (except we didn't, we just paid a little more for it).
        chucksmash 11y ago
        An employer making a profit beyond the cost of paying their employees a (decent in many cases, especially in software) salary is not slavery...
        andrepd 11y ago
        You may not like the analogy, and the difference in scale is surely a big one, but the principle is the same. In slavery, you were prevented to quit by physical coercion. In capitalism, you are prevented to quit because if you do you and your family will starve (or at least live in poverty, on modern welfare states). The employer can pay you minimum wage for your labour, even if it generates 10x more value, because you have no choice: he has you on the palm of your hand. Submit to the conditions the capital holders dictate, or starve.
- daleroberts 11y ago
  Yep, you'll find fat cats in every industry. My main point is that not only is there "dualisation" like is proposed in the article but out of those who have made it into a tenured position there is another hard split between those academics that are creaming it and those that do ok.
danieltillett 11y ago
Well those of us in the natural sciences don’t bring in that sort of money. Given how much work and poor pay is required to get a tenured position the pay is not good.

1stop 11y ago

Which discipline are you speaking of? That kind of money I've only heard of in finance land (for academics)... and that kind of dried up after 2008.

daleroberts 11y ago
Yes, Finance is the biggest and the money still flows. Look at all the recent hires in Finance at UNSW and UMelb who have been appointed at the Senior Lecturer level straight after PhD. Market loadings are paid in Medecine too. Probably Law as well... I've also heard that Statistics and doing Machine Learning consulting on side is good too. What surprised me the most is all the arts/sociology academics doing big consulting contracts connected to "foreign aid" work.

sillygeese 11y ago

Ah yes, fat salaries on other people's money, and a fat pension on other people's money! Sweet deal!

1stop 11y ago
... That describes every job... ever. Unless you are the one stealing the resources directly from the land... in which case: Fat salaries on other peoples' property. But hey, hate on the academics, they are the WORST! right?
- loup-vaillant 11y ago
  > That describes every job... ever Wait, what? Most jobs give you a salary, sure, but you nearly always end up producing far more value than you are paid back. The thieves are the shareholders of the company you serve. (As for the land… not every piece of land is someone's property —and that's good.)
  - saalweachter 11y ago
    If you are producing more value than you are being paid for, why are you working there?
    - chucksmash 11y ago
      What alternative are you suggesting? salesman who sells $100,000 in product a year should get paid $150,000 a year? Unless you are part of a cost center, it seems to me the assumption is that you are producing more value than you cost to employ.
      - 1stop 11y ago
        Or people get paid their value, and we stop thinking it's okay for a select few to reap the surplus value of others... you know, kind of like how we got rid of slavery (except we didn't, we just paid a little more for it).
        chucksmash 11y ago
        An employer making a profit beyond the cost of paying their employees a (decent in many cases, especially in software) salary is not slavery...
        andrepd 11y ago
        You may not like the analogy, and the difference in scale is surely a big one, but the principle is the same. In slavery, you were prevented to quit by physical coercion. In capitalism, you are prevented to quit because if you do you and your family will starve (or at least live in poverty, on modern welfare states). The employer can pay you minimum wage for your labour, even if it generates 10x more value, because you have no choice: he has you on the palm of your hand. Submit to the conditions the capital holders dictate, or starve.
daleroberts 11y ago
Yep, you'll find fat cats in every industry. My main point is that not only is there "dualisation" like is proposed in the article but out of those who have made it into a tenured position there is another hard split between those academics that are creaming it and those that do ok.

danieltillett 11y ago

Well those of us in the natural sciences don’t bring in that sort of money. Given how much work and poor pay is required to get a tenured position the pay is not good.