How much should professors get paid?

Brian Leiter links to a series of 2005 San Francisco Chronicle articles on faculty and administrator compensation in the University of California system (more here and here). Leiter suggests that salaries for UC law profs are actually somewhat lower than one might expect, given the prevailing salaries at other top public law schools, such as Texas and Virginia. He concludes, "I... imagine the publication of this data will be sending a lot of folks to the Dean's office!"

Maybe so-- and if so, more power to them, since there's no reason UC law faculty should not want to be paid as much as peers in Austin or Charlottesville-- particularly given the much higher costs of living they face in LA and the Bay Area. But I'm afraid the articles will send some people running to the California State legislature, shouting that professors get paid too much.

That, certainly, is the tone of the San Francisco Chronicle articles, which derides some of the non-salary benefits some UC administrators and faculty received as "Lavish parties. Pricey gifts. Club memberships."  The Chronicle quotes various union officials and education watchdog groups, mostly expressing dismay that faculty get so many perks while student fees and tuition go up and while support staff get shafted.

To be sure, support staff-- and adjuncts, TAs, and numerous other groups-- do get shafted, not only in the UC system but at most other universities. But I can't see that inflated faculty salaries are the primary culprit, and many (though not all) of the purportedly shocking perks cited by the Chronicle seem far from unreasonable to me. The real problem is that state legislatures, in California as in many other states, have starved their university systems for years. The damage has been across the board, and many state legislatures would like nothing better than an excuse to scale back faculty salaries still more. But this would not be a smart move. State universities already struggle to keep good faculty, who are tempted by the less strapped circumstances prevalent at many private universities.

And does anyone really think cuts in faculty compensation would be used by universities to help low income students or pay adjuncts or janitors any more? Not likely-- though I imagine many (though not all) of us would be perfectly willing to take pay cuts if our universities were actually going to use the savings to increase pay for lower income workers.

My fear is that in an age in which the right insists that universities are hotbeds of lefty radicalism, the Chronicle article will just add fuel to the fire. Not only are those professors all radicals, but they're spending your tax dollars on "lavish parties"! Makes a good headline, but last time I visited Boalt, I didn't notice the lavish parties. What I did notice was the lack of air conditioning on a sweltering spring day; the peeling paint in the corridors, and the slightly neglected air of the whole place.

UPDATE: see also Prof Bainbridge and Paul Caron on this. Caron links to many other SF Chronicle articles on this, and notes also an article on the issue in the Chronicle of Higher Ed.

Comments

[Brian]

I quite agree with this, and when Typepad is working again (it hasn't been for the last half hour), I will post a link to your remarks.

[John Lopresti]

Northern CA press, like that in southern CA, I might add, by way of fairness in parallelism, has had a kind of Murdochization long since. Your observation that part of this tempest is in a reactionary tepot is correct. It is always a pleasant surprise to discover academia in many environs harbors the inquisitive intellect and openness of debate, and, at the end of a carrel row beneath a bemothed fluorescent light is the honors student ensconced in stacks of ages' writings.
There are many reasons for the public parade of UCs pecadilloes, some on either side of the political spectrum. There are those who still regret UC regents led the anti-Affirmative action and Bakke backlash movements, gave tenure to a professor here unnamed who coauthored the Bybee torture-of-humans memos. There are ostensible moderate neoRepublicans who stand for balancing the budget on the backs of the middle class, since the backs of the poor and unemployed have become less durable. And I see a certain reflexive consciousness gathering: a denouement that internet is enabling some bright minds to do workgroup activities from home, thereby creating a dispersed knowledgeWorkerForce, if you will, or a fusion of research efforts.
How wonderful it would be if our next governor in CA genuinely was for UC excellence. However, UC is monolithic, and to that extent the critiques are cathartic. I have worked in one of the adjunct offices for a Chancellor; and even discarded a TA job a long time ago in one of the best universities in my field in the midwest, because of a subjective yen for a more urbane setting and a thirst for knowledge which would go unsated in many respects in Bloomington, at least in that time.
I would be interested in the impressions this scandal is making in the UC Santa Cruz campus, and the three principal central valley campuses. I always think first of Boalt and Berkeley, or even UC Med Center campus in San Francisco, having pursued a lot of my most serious endeavors in that part of the state, though UCLA clearly is the predominant campus.
Similarly, in the long ago I rejected an invite to participate in study in Irvine, though recently that campus has shown itself to be quite independent and scholarly.
With the kind of political leadership we have in CA it is a stretch to expect vast improvement in UC though there is deep appreciation throughout the legislature. I do not mind peeling paint and distraught legal scholars seeking precedent on the rare hot day on the upper campus. Bepress, one of their news organs, is still a wonderful source of creative legal theory. I like to examine the blogrolls when research time permits, as if even these beginnings have taken me only to the fringes of some important workgroups in many significant fields.
The SF Chronicle is a good paper, despite its takeover by the Hearst Corp.; it has retained some identity. Even the neoLATimes has its tendencies toward archeoConservative airs; though usually if I have an online choice, unless I am familiar with the byline, it is usually a given that I will feel more at home reading LAT as a more straightforward reporting of events.
Somewhere between SCF-LAT are the blogs, like your new group. I look forward to my next visit here.

[RCinProv]

The article may also send some of us who teach undegraduates into the law market! I knew, of course, that the pay scales were different. But the law school salaries are so much higher than I had imagined--and that is at the "lower paying" UC system -- that it is a bit demoralizing. After twenty years of working extremely hard at teaching undergrads, I make 1/4 to 1/3 of the salary of colleagues know and admire in the UC system. And I'm at a "wealthy" private institution! Teaching undergrads just isn't worth anything close to teaching law students.

I guess that I'd like the "how much should professors make?" question to be broader in scope.

[Stephen M (Ethesis)]

particularly given the much higher costs of living they face in LA and the Bay Area.

No offense, but what kind of housing can they afford in those markets at those salaries? My wife's aunt just sold her two bedroom, one bath home for $890K. If the profs have kids and want a four bedroom home, I don't see how they can make house payments (I'm amazed anyone can, yet obviously millions of people do).

Yes, I realize that there is a scale, with adjuncts supporting the system and law professors at the top, and yes, I'm impressed that Texas is willing to pay the UT professors more, especially given how much cheaper it is to live in Austin without a state income tax, but ...

I'm completely unable to formulate the answer to the questions posed here or at Leiter's site.

[Coach Outlet]

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[Jory]

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