FW thread: Jobs with the best ratio of actual work/salary

Non-investing personal finance issues including insurance, credit, real estate, taxes, employment and legal issues such as trusts and wills.
peter71
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Post by peter71 »

market timer wrote:True stats for a recent hire, Pete. Maybe this is a difference between political science and finance/economics? I know assistant profs who started around $150K.
I'm not surprised by a really hot hire getting well over $100k because bidding wars happen, and I don't know much about B-schools, but if you can land an assistant professor job in an econ department that pays a base salary of $90k without publications I'll throw in an extra $100 on top of that base salary as a small price to pay for a valuable lesson. :D

All best,
Pete
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Post by NightOwl »

btenny wrote:On the other hand, my retired economics professor friend says he never worked hard at all. He was a tenured faculty professor at a small California colllege. He made an OK salary. He did no research that I am aware of. He says his typical day was to teach a class or two in the morning, go to the gym on campus, hold office hours for a while, maybe meet with a grad student and then go home. No publishing that I am aware of. No PhD. No nights. No weekends. No work travel. Yes he has a full MA and some added grad work and other back ground but it is not very rigourous. I suspect that newer faculty with his credentials are not doing as well but who knows.
This scenario used to be possible, but it isn't anymore. American universities are churning out Ph.D.s these days, and without a Ph.D. it's essentially impossible to get a steady university teaching job. Those with Ph.D.s are under constant pressure to publish, starting when they're still grad students. I've talked to many profs who, forty years ago, had a tenured job before they published a single article. These days, in the humanities at least, that dissertation had better produce at least a major article, and better yet a book, if you want to be a tenure-track professor. Publish or perish. It's true that you can get away with very few office hours and that you can basically ignore student emails if you are publishing, but not many people manage to publish major articles or books without working many, many hours over and above their teaching responsibilities.

Academia as a route to easy wealth is.... a curious route.

The fact is that lots of jobs pay lots of money, but the tradeoff is almost always time. My lawyer friends make ridiculous money -- the starting salary for a 24-year-old NYC Biglaw first year associate who knows nothing and whose work is essentially worthless is 160k + bonus (probably more now, who knows). But your life is entirely theirs, and they'll work you to death. Good luck working fewer than 80 hours per week (which really means it's an 80k 40 hr/wk job). Make partner at a medium-sized firm, as several of my friends have, and you get a million+ per year, but now you're on the hook to find your own clients and keep them happy. Your workload just increased.

Lots of ways to make money, but few don't come at the cost of time.

I agree (as I often do) with Livesoft -- most people in "low time high pay" situations have downsized from years of "high time high pay." You have to pay your dues.

NightOwl
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Post by conundrum »

Agree with NightOwl and livesoft.

In my experience in medicine I have seen a few "low time, high pay" M.D.s. They all had evolved or downsized from "high time, higher pay" practices. It is certainly possible in medicine to develop a financially lucrative practice that does not require an excessive time commitment. However this usually requires being in the right specialty, the right place, putting in the time early in your career and being willing to slow down and make less. The last factor is the most critical as I have seen many doctors who could theoretically slow down but very few do.

Drum
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VictoriaF
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Post by VictoriaF »

Victoria
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House Blend
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Re: Turning professorship into VC

Post by House Blend »

VictoriaF wrote:Taleb advocates a "bar bell" strategy where 90% of money goes into the safest possible investments and 10% are widely diversified among positive-Black-Swan catching opportunities such as venture capital for technology, biology and similar fields.

A professor at a premier technical university or institute (Caltech, MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon) is exposed to dozens of brilliant students some of whom will eventually start positive-Black-Swan generating ventures. If there a way to implement Taleb's 10% by partnering with students?
As far as the positive black swan goes, yes. I've seen it happen. BTW, what makes you think that students are the only ones that start these ventures? Universities go out of their way to encourage faculty to do so (and use grad students as a source of cheap labor). Get the Federal gov't to subsidize the incubation stage of your idea, and then get a start-up venture going.

During the dot com boom, this put quite a strain on CS departments-- all the faculty were off cultivating start-ups, every student wanted a CS degree, and there were few people left to teach the classes.

Can't say what the typical investment portfolio of a faculty member engaged in this activity looks like, but I would bet very few of them are mostly in TIPS. They probably view Taleb as a wacko. (However, I'm not choosing a side on that point.)
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Post by VictoriaF »

Victoria
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House Blend
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Post by House Blend »

This is veering off from the original theme of "Nice work if you can get it," but...

Is the investing "a little with each of them" meant to be time or money (or both)? The time aspect is more or less part of the usual job description, and occasionally leads to future rewards, whether psychic or monetary.

Or maybe you are suggesting a venture capital fund, open to small investors(?), that would invest in startups of Stanford alumni?

If I were going for a barbell strategy, I'd rather stick with a more conventional one, such as TIPS+SCV or TIPS+Emerging Markets. ;-)
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VictoriaF
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Post by VictoriaF »

Victoria
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SP-diceman
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Post by SP-diceman »

TheEternalVortex wrote:
etherscreen78 wrote:Nurse Anesthetist - The Best Kept Secret in Health Care
This seems to require more education than desirable by the thread's standards.
Which is basically how do I get paid well for doing very little.

You guys are living in the good old days.
I think this will be ending.

State governments are going bankrupt.
(just ask Arnold)
The fat/easy days are over. (or soon will be)

What was that saying?

Chickens coming home to roost?

Thanks
SP-diceman
livesoft
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Post by livesoft »

i saw this on the early retirement board, but it does seem to fit here:
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/m ... utsourcing
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VictoriaF
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Post by VictoriaF »

Victoria
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Martindo
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Post by Martindo »

OK, I have spent my career as a chemistry professor in a non-elite major public university system. (The California State University.) I think our salaries are around the median nation-wide for comparable institutions. It would be possible at the end of your career to make 80+K a year and spend 20 hours a week doing it if you could be pretty shameless about doing the absolute minimum. I observe that most senior faculty members work 30-40 hours a week for a salary in the $80-90K range

Beginners face a different situation. Most hire in with at least 6 years of post-graduate eduction (PhD and post-Doc in the sciences). My experience is that these are bright people with, usually, a lot of ability. Pressure to teach, do administrative work, do some research and raise some grant money means that most work at least 50 hours a week for a salary at $60+K in their early years.

The previous post mentioning assistant profs making $150K must be referring to some other kind of situation. Deans of big schools make something like $150K in our system.
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Post by livesoft »

Martindo wrote:...
The previous post mentioning assistant profs making $150K must be referring to some other kind of situation. Deans of big schools make something like $150K in our system.
I assumed those $150K asst profs might be folks like Sandy Weil who donated enough money for a building or two, an endowed chair, or even their own salaries. They could've also been instrumental in bringing in a huge grant or subcontract from an industrial source,
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Blue
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Post by Blue »

best work:income ratio,

1) rock n roll star
2) hedge fund manager
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market timer
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Post by market timer »

livesoft wrote:
Martindo wrote:...
The previous post mentioning assistant profs making $150K must be referring to some other kind of situation. Deans of big schools make something like $150K in our system.
I assumed those $150K asst profs might be folks like Sandy Weil who donated enough money for a building or two, an endowed chair, or even their own salaries. They could've also been instrumental in bringing in a huge grant or subcontract from an industrial source,
Average new finance prof hire starts at $142K, according to this randomly selected source: http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/ma ... -salaries/

Anecdotally, this is consistent with what I've seen. Starting pay is higher in the private sector, typically in the $200-250K range for jobs in finance and management consulting.
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grok87
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Re: Taleb: scalable professions. VictoriaF: bar-bell careers

Post by grok87 »

VictoriaF wrote:In The Black Swan, Taleb recalls that when he was in Wharton another student introduced him to the idea of scalable and unscalable professions. In an unscalable profession, one is paid by the hour. It could be very high pay, but one still has to put in hours. Examples of unscalable professions are physicians and consultants.

In scalable professions, the same amount of work (working hours) may result in orders of magnitude differences in outcomes. It requires the same amount of time to execute a $1,000 trade and a $10,000,000 trade. It takes the same amount of time to write a book dismissed by publishers and a book that becomes a "must-read" for tens of millions people. Scalable professions reside in Taleb's Extremestan, which means that most such professionals do not get paid at all while a few get all the benefits. Furthermore, in order to have a chance of becoming a scalable Warren Buffet or JK Rowling one must first put in countless hours. Fortune favors the prepared.

And here, allow me to invent a concept of a "bar-bell career" -- to parallel Taleb's "bar-bell investments."

With the bar-bell investing approach you put 90% of your money into the safest possible assets (TIPS, I-Bonds) and let the remaining 10% collect serendipitous opportunities among new technology ventures.

With the bar-bell career approach you spend 90% of your career in the safest possible job (dentist, pharmacist, government) and use your golden years to become a writer or an inventor.

Victoria
Nice idea. I think some people do it simultaneously. Like Chekov.
cheers,
RIP Mr. Bogle.
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Post by Martindo »

We seem to be having some trouble pinning down what "assistant professors" start at. (Earlier in this thread the idea was at non-elite universities. The emphasis was on the pay/work ratio). Maybe the radically different views expressed in the last few posts on this idea show us why it's so hard to come to agreement on economic/political ideas.

I checked with some university colleagues, non in finance, and we all agreed that around $150K for starting assistant profs in our large, typical state system was unheard of. "Hard to hire" specialties get a pay bump, but not almost 3X what the "easy to hire" start at. (salary info is publicly available in the CSU but I haven't looked for it.) The one piece of support cited for the $150K assertion was a survey carried out by out by a outfit which, for a fee, will help you advance your academic business career. They gave no information on how they carried out their survey.

I'm not trying to grind an axe on this - it's just a little example of how hard it is for groups to come to an accurate agreement on seemingly simple things.
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Post by VictoriaF »

Victoria
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btenny
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Post by btenny »

That scaleable thing is very interesting. I have a friend who really understands that point. Other could follow his model. He worked for many years as hourly/salaried software engineer.

But on nights and weekends he started a business that used some software he wrote in his spare time. After a while he quit his day job and worked on the software business full time. After 3-4 years the working software was virtually complete and all that was needed was maintenence and some annual updates. He hired his brother and sister in law to do that routine maintenance. He quit working regularly as only monthly budget and billing work was required plus occasional updates. He moved to the mountains to play more. But he was making major bucks working only 40 hours per month.

In the last 10 years or so he has written a novel and invested in other things things that make money. He bought and remodeled some vacation rental property. He created a by owner rental property web site. He acts as his own rental agent. He never pays middle men to do any work. He always acts as his own boss for everything. Again only scalable enterprises where he does the high level work and hires the low level stuff.

So yes you can work 20 hours per week and make major bucks. You just have to work smart and build up over time.

Bill
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Post by market timer »

Martindo wrote:We seem to be having some trouble pinning down what "assistant professors" start at. (Earlier in this thread the idea was at non-elite universities. The emphasis was on the pay/work ratio). Maybe the radically different views expressed in the last few posts on this idea show us why it's so hard to come to agreement on economic/political ideas.
Martindo, I don't think there's any disagreement. We're talking about different populations. I said I know asst profs in finance who started at $150K, and know of one who is able to get by on 20 hours per week. Finance profs earn more than chem profs on average. Incidentally, my gf is a chem prof who meets expectations in less than 40 hours per week, because she is an effective manager and focuses on grant writing. Generally, academics work very hard in any field.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that academia is a lazy man's path to riches. Rather, it offers an unusual arrangement where you can focus on your own projects with minimal fixed responsibilities (10-20 hours per week teaching, etc.) and high flexibility. I'll consider returning to academia after paying my dues in finance, ideally somewhere interesting overseas and in conjunction with the sort of independent consulting mentioned by avalpert.
September
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Post by September »

For those interested in figuring out the salary of the CSU employees, here is the web site that lists the names of the individuals who make over $100,000.

http://www.sfgate.com/webdb/csupay/
The California State University system has more than 2,700 full-time employees with annual base pay over $100,000. Find out who they were, what campuses they worked for and how much they made by searching the database below.

To perform a search, you can leave the fields blank if you want broad results. For more narrow results, you can enter a person's name or select from the drop-down menus.

(Note: This data was provided by the State of California. Annual base pay is based on monthly pay figures for April 2008.)
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mlebuf
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Post by mlebuf »

http://www.salarylist.com/all-assistant ... salary.htm

For what it's worth, this site lists starting salaries for assistant professors in Finance. Keep in mind that academic appointments in Accounting and Finance are among the highest of any field in academia. I haven't checked but salaries at law and med schools are likely higher. Salary levels are based on supply and demand. This is one area where the world of academia meets the real world. Keep in mind that these are 9 month salaries.
Best wishes, | Michael | | Invest your time actively and your money passively.
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Post by graveday »

The worst would be POTUS.
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Frobie
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Re: FW thread: Jobs with the best ratio of actual work/salar

Post by Frobie »

LH wrote: pharmD: here is the krebs cycle, know what it does, and be able to answer general questions about it
That was not at all my experience in a baccalaureate pharmacy program. In fact, it's funny that you picked this as an example of how pharmacy students have it easy, because when we got done with our biochem class I was so f'in sick and tired of the Krebs cycle that I ceremonially burned that page of my notes in the fireplace of the apartment I was renting at the time. True story.

There's a ton of things you can do with a PharmD. I have not counted pills in 13 years, and I make a pretty decent living. Don't let ignorant people turn you off to pharmacy if you have an interest. Talk to folks in the profession to learn the positives and the negatives. It's probably not among the jobs where you will get the most bucks for the least work, though.
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Post by james22 »

Overseas off-shore oil riggers. Make six-figures, average 16hrs/week (14 day on, 21 days off).

Oh, and finance (and accounting, law) is very much different than the humanities: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Big-Li ... -of/63937/
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Post by peter71 »

mlebuf wrote:http://www.salarylist.com/all-assistant ... salary.htm
in
For what it's worth, this site lists starting salaries for assistant professors in Finance. Keep in mind that academic appointments in Accounting and Finance are among the highest of any field in academia. I haven't checked but salaries at law and med schools are likely higher. Salary levels are based on supply and demand. This is one area where the world of academia meets the real world. Keep in mind that these are 9 month salaries.
Hi Michael,

Definitely high, huge range (down to 34k) and not that skewed. Not sure how they selected their data though (people writing in with pay stubs?) and I wouldn't presume it's a STARTING salary any more than the Chronicle data, but does it say starting somewhere? For example, #1 Cal Tech pays its average Assistant $105.5 but I've always assumed that could be a 1st year, 3rd year, 6th year, etc, (just as the full profs may not be "newly minted" full profs).

http://chronicle.com/stats/aaup/

Tables are sortable and free for anyone interested (though not specific to dept.)

All best,
Pete
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VictoriaF
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Post by VictoriaF »

Victoria
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peter71
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Post by peter71 »

VictoriaF wrote:
james22 wrote:Overseas off-shore oil riggers. Make six-figures, average 16hrs/week (14 day on, 21 days off).

Oh, and finance (and accounting, law) is very much different than the humanities: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Big-Li ... -of/63937/
Thomas H. Benton's article is very insightful. Depressing but insightful. I wonder if just one excellent piece like this may reverse the "humanities trap" by exposing hypocritical promotion of the "the life of the mind.".

Victoria
Hi Victoria,

I generally like Benton too but there's a couple things in this piece that seem a little overwrought . . . for example, it's not that hard to calculate a "non-employment in academia" rate by asking for a list of annual placements (which may only be about 3 per year) and comparing that to the size of entering classes (which may well be about 15 per year). I'm also not sure the prestige/funding tradeoff is as big a deal as he makes it out to be as the two tend to go together . . . bottom line, if you're that anecdotal lower middle class daughter in the piece who got in to Comp Lit at Yale you very likely have free tuition plus a stipend that's enough to live on, so at least compared to the Comp Lit BA you may well have taken out several loans to get it's a relatively good deal provided you're aware that the chances it's going to lead to what it's "supposed" to lead to may be as low as 20% . . .

All best,
Pete
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Post by fsrph »

TheEternalVortex wrote:
etherscreen78 wrote:Nurse Anesthetist - The Best Kept Secret in Health Care
This seems to require more education than desirable by the thread's standards.
A CRNA is a great job, no question. However, the limiting factor in becoming a CRNA is gaining admission to a school. In my area, there are very few places to attain a CRNA title. Also, these schools have very small classes so it is very difficult to be accepted into their program.

Francis
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Post by VictoriaF »

Victoria
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grok87
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Post by grok87 »

james22 wrote:Overseas off-shore oil riggers. Make six-figures, average 16hrs/week (14 day on, 21 days off).

Oh, and finance (and accounting, law) is very much different than the humanities: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Big-Li ... -of/63937/
james,
thanks for posting that- very illuminating...
of course i guess the sciences are no picnic either...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 026844.ece
cheers,
RIP Mr. Bogle.
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VictoriaF
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Post by VictoriaF »

Victoria
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livesoft
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Post by livesoft »

Bishop was probably doing one or two post docs and having babies during the intervening 10 years. She was also probably following her husband around. Generally a tenure decision occurs before year 8. So her career path is not atypical. However, movers and shakers will get tenure much earlier.
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Post by peter71 »

While murder remains rare in academia, apparently most of us are slowly killing ourselves by not spending 12k per year on food. :D
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Post by market timer »

livesoft wrote:Bishop was probably doing one or two post docs and having babies during the intervening 10 years.
Took me a couple tries to parse this.
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Post by mlebuf »

Hi Pete,

You can be sure that the salaries for Finance profs on the low end were not for newly minted Ph.D.'s. Here's a link to a 2008-2009 salary survey done by the international association that accredits business schools. You can see the mean salaries by rank from Professor to Instructor in all fields of business in the tables on pp. 8-9.

http://www.aacsb.edu/dataandresearch/re ... xcerpt.pdf

On another topic, the Amy Bishop story is developing into movie material. First, she accidentally kills her brother after having a fight with him and is never charged with a crime. Some years later, she is questioned in conjunction with a mail bombing attempt at Harvard. Now she's arrested and charged with first degree murder for shooting 3 faculty colleagues and wounding several others. Offhand, I'd say she's a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

I suspect she will likely spend most or all of the rest of her days teaching Biology to inmates in Alabama. Of course, there's always the chance that she will plead insanity, and if found innocent may be confined to an institution for treatment. Intelligence and sanity should never be confused. May God help the families and friends of the victims whose lives she ruined, and her 4 children. They are victims too.
Best wishes, | Michael | | Invest your time actively and your money passively.
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Post by MarkBarb »

I think that looking for a low work to pay ratio is the wrong approach. It assumes that work is odious and should be minimized. A better approach is to look at things that you enjoy doing and find which ones pay the best.

I'm about to go to "work" today despite the office being closed. Why? Because I derive great satisfaction from my work. Find a career that you enjoy and you will enjoy "working."

Do you really want to go through life working minimal hours? What sense of accomplishment will that bring? Don't you want to contribute to society?
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Post by peter71 »

mlebuf wrote:Hi Pete,

You can be sure that the salaries for Finance profs on the low end were not for newly minted Ph.D.'s. Here's a link to a 2008-2009 salary survey done by the international association that accredits business schools. You can see the mean salaries by rank from Professor to Instructor in all fields of business in the tables on pp. 8-9.

http://www.aacsb.edu/dataandresearch/re ... xcerpt.pdf
Hi Michael,

Great data -- thanks -- and all the other academics should check it out!

While these are B-school salaries and I think that's key, there's no getting around the fact that they're sky-high -- actually HIGHER than suggested by the online report -- $119,900 for a new PhD in Finance/Insurance/Real Estate.

Now, those of us doubters can say there are only 600+ B-schools out there and that those tend be clustered at the more prestigious end of the 2000+ colleges and universities out there, but the fact remains that that $119,900 salary should then be attainable for someone at approximately the #300 ranked B-school.

So I have two basic questions:

1) How does one get a job at the #300 ranked B-school? Is it indeed possible to do without working hard or, frankly, without even being very bright? Can one then maintain that job without ever publishing anything?

2) While I'm not ruling out the possibility that the answers to 1) are "yes, yes, yes", then how do B-schools manage to navigate budget fights with univ. administrators who typically went through the tougher arts & sciences process . . . is the #300 ranked B-school just such a cash cow that the issue of funding from the larger university never comes up, or what? If that's not the case, I just can't imagine why hard science departments that produce grant revenue for unis and, frankly, do work that's probably more socially useful than finance/insurance/real estate haven't been raising a stink specifically about this issue forever . . .

All best,
Pete
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Post by joruva »

MarkBarb wrote:I think that looking for a low work to pay ratio is the wrong approach. It assumes that work is odious and should be minimized. A better approach is to look at things that you enjoy doing and find which ones pay the best.

I'm about to go to "work" today despite the office being closed. Why? Because I derive great satisfaction from my work. Find a career that you enjoy and you will enjoy "working."

Do you really want to go through life working minimal hours? What sense of accomplishment will that bring? Don't you want to contribute to society?
While it's a great thing to be passionate about your work, you don't have to work to contribute to society. Spending time with friends and family, as well as volunteering, all contribute to society.

Time required for work is definitely an important career metric. Even though I enjoyed law classes in HS and college, I wouldn't want to become a lawyer and practice it 100+ hours a week.
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Post by House Blend »

peter71 wrote:Great data -- thanks -- and all the other academics should check it out!

While these are B-school salaries and I think that's key, there's no getting around the fact that they're sky-high -- actually HIGHER than suggested by the online report -- $119,900 for a new PhD in Finance/Insurance/Real Estate.

Now, those of us doubters can say there are only 600+ B-schools out there and that those tend be clustered at the more prestigious end of the 2000+ colleges and universities out there, but the fact remains that that $119,900 salary should then be attainable for someone at approximately the #300 ranked B-school.

So I have two basic questions:

1) How does one get a job at the #300 ranked B-school? Is it indeed possible to do without working hard or, frankly, without even being very bright? Can one then maintain that job without ever publishing anything?

2) While I'm not ruling out the possibility that the answers to 1) are "yes, yes, yes", then how do B-schools manage to navigate budget fights with univ. administrators who typically went through the tougher arts & sciences process . . . is the #300 ranked B-school just such a cash cow that the issue of funding from the larger university never comes up, or what? If that's not the case, I just can't imagine why hard science departments that produce grant revenue for unis and, frankly, do work that's probably more socially useful than finance/insurance/real estate haven't been raising a stink specifically about this issue forever . . .
Pete,

I'm surprised that there are as many as 600 B-schools in the US. There are only ~100 schools that compete in Division 1 athletics (granted, Chicago and MIT are not on that list).

In the sciences, the NAS puts out rankings every 5 or 10 years, but I think they don't even bother to go beyond the top 50 or so.

So I have no idea what it means to be at the 300th B-school, or (say) the 300th "best" chemistry department (assuming this could even be measured).

But: looking at the list of top B-schools, it appears that tuition and fees for an MBA will set you back about $50K/yr, whereas for a bachelor's degree at the same U, it's more like $35K (tuition only, never mind room & board). So every warm body in your classroom is bringing in an extra $15K in revenue compared to teaching undergraduates. The contrast is probably even greater when you look at financial aid--my impression is that everybody going for an MBA is paying full freight, whereas undergraduate tuition at elite schools is like an MSRP that few people actually pay.

Whether that kind of spread is replicated at B-school #300, I don't know, but it could explain how such a school could afford to pay a significant premium to their business faculty, even when they aren't pulling in external funding.

So: my best guess for your Q2 is the "cash cow" angle you mention.

To avoid the "stink" issue you mention, the solution is simple: locate your arts and sciences faculty and B-school faculty within separate bureaucracies, so that you have to go up several layers before you can reach someone who supposedly answers to both groups.
avalpert
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Post by avalpert »

House BlendPete wrote:
I'm surprised that there are as many as 600 B-schools in the US. There are only ~100 schools that compete in Division 1 athletics (granted, Chicago and MIT are not on that list).
Actually there are over 300 division 1 schools - there are 120 that play what used to be called division 1-a Football (now Football Bowl Subdivision).
But: looking at the list of top B-schools, it appears that tuition and fees for an MBA will set you back about $50K/yr, whereas for a bachelor's degree at the same U, it's more like $35K (tuition only, never mind room & board). So every warm body in your classroom is bringing in an extra $15K in revenue compared to teaching undergraduates. The contrast is probably even greater when you look at financial aid--my impression is that everybody going for an MBA is paying full freight, whereas undergraduate tuition at elite schools is like an MSRP that few people actually pay.

Whether that kind of spread is replicated at B-school #300, I don't know, but it could explain how such a school could afford to pay a significant premium to their business faculty, even when they aren't pulling in external funding.

So: my best guess for your Q2 is the "cash cow" angle you mention.
Another alternative is simple competitive markets - people qualified to teach finance are looking at alternative position in Corporate Finance, Consulting and Banking so the schools need to pay more (not neccesarily as much as the substitues) than humanities whose professor have less lucrative outside oppurtunities (compare b-school salaries to law schools and med schools).
peter71
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Post by peter71 »

Hi HB,

Yeah, the report says 600+ departments and while I agree it's tough to rank meaningfully beyond the top that doesn't stop folks from doing it -- US News has its general tiers and then there's that Chinese Ranking of 100's of World Univeristies plus another British one and perhaps still others . . .

Your tuition gap explanation is interesting and maybe sufficient, and obviously the operational costs of B-school are low too (at least relative to some hard sciences). But law and med school profs still have to publish (AFAIK) and so if these folks don't I can't see any other argument that a provost/president would buy beyond "revenue generation", and even then I think it'd be tempting to just replace the PhD's with some part time CFA or CFP practitioners who'll teach an engaging course or two relatively cheaply so as to have the academic credential on their resume . . .

All best,
Pete
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mlebuf
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Post by mlebuf »

peter71 wrote: So I have two basic questions:

1) How does one get a job at the #300 ranked B-school? Is it indeed possible to do without working hard or, frankly, without even being very bright? Can one then maintain that job without ever publishing anything?

2) While I'm not ruling out the possibility that the answers to 1) are "yes, yes, yes", then how do B-schools manage to navigate budget fights with univ. administrators who typically went through the tougher arts & sciences process . . . is the #300 ranked B-school just such a cash cow that the issue of funding from the larger university never comes up, or what? If that's not the case, I just can't imagine why hard science departments that produce grant revenue for unis and, frankly, do work that's probably more socially useful than finance/insurance/real estate haven't been raising a stink specifically about this issue forever . . .

All best,
Pete
Hi Pete,

You ask two very good questions and I'll try to answer them. Bear in mind that I got my Ph.D. in Management almost 41 years ago and have been away from academia over 20 years. Yet, from reading and talking with former colleagues, I don't believe that the salary situation has changed that much.

To get a job at an AACSB accredited business school in a tenure track position generally requires having a doctoral degree from a reputable business school. It doesn't require that the degree be from a top tier university unless one aspires to teach at one. Can one do it without working hard? Almost certainly not. Most people over age 18 realize that nothing worthwhile is easy. It takes commitment, sacrifice and time. Can one do it without being exceptionally bright? My opinion based on years of observation is that one has to be well above average in intelligence but it doesn't take a rocket scientist mentality to get through doctoral program in business. This is simply because business is not rocket science. Can one maintain the job without publishing anything? Probably not in most of the AACSB schools. Of course, after acquiring tenure, job security is almost a given. To paraphrase the old line from, "Love Story," tenure means never having to say you're sorry. :D

Now, to answer the big question that you want to know the answer to: How do business school faculty manage to get those great salaries? The answer is very simple. It's a simple matter of supply and demand. Doctorates in business are scarce as hen's teeth. Universities that want to acquire/keep their business schools accredited have to have a high percentage of Ph.D.'s in the respective fields. How scarce are they? Here's a statistic that will likely astound you: When I was getting out of grad school, the number of newly minted Ph.D., CPA's in the United States was approximately 30 per year. No, that's not a typo: Thirty new Ph.D.'s in Accounting with a CPA certificate in a nation of well over 200 million people back then. When I was in my last year of grad school at LSU and on the job market, I got letters from over 100 universities in 37 states and a few foreign countries, asking if I would be interested interviewing for a position. The latest AACSB salary survey tells me that things haven't changed that much. Salaries today, adjusted for inflation, are actually higher now than back then.

Do all those administrators with non/business Ph.D.'s resent having to pay so much for b school faculty? I'm sure they don't like it but they have little choice. Business schools are university cash cows. Unlike medical schools, engineering and science departments, b schools have low overhead and generate good revenue through large enrollments. In addition, bright business school grads who make smart career choices, work hard and get lucky, make megabucks. Some of them give back to their alma mater through creating scholarships, endowing professorships and paying for buildings/facilities named after them.

University salaries are not based on the academic rigor of doctoral programs or how difficult it is to get a Ph.D. in a given field. Whether they choose to admit it or not, a university is an economic entity and business is not rocket science. It's about supply and demand. In that sense, university life really is the real world.

One other perk of being a b school faculty member is the opportunity to generate outside income through writing books (both text and trade types), speaking to businesses, and consulting. A 9-month teaching year amounts to about 32 weeks of work. That leaves plenty of time to work on profitable ventures. Having a second income provided me with the economic wherewithal to leave academia at age 47.
Best wishes, | Michael | | Invest your time actively and your money passively.
peter71
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Post by peter71 »

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the additional info! Our posts crossed but the needing PhD's for accreditation angle isn't one I'd considered.

All best,
Pete
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graveday
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Post by graveday »

I see B-schools and all I can think of is Babes. I'm sure they have other strengths.
KyleAAA
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Post by KyleAAA »

Outside of the medical profession where lives depend on you actually being there, I think the majority of jobs can be that way. Most people get drawn into the working-to-feel-productive trap. Checking your email 4 times per day isn't going to help you get any more work done.
james22
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Post by james22 »

peter71 wrote:Is it indeed possible to do without working hard or, frankly, without even being very bright? Can one then maintain that job without ever publishing anything?
No. No. No.
Glenn
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Post by Glenn »

Regarding Amy Bishop:
I suspect she will likely spend most or all of the rest of her days teaching Biology to inmates in Alabama.
When in grad school, I had a friend who taught biology in prison to the women of the Manson family. The lab dissections were - to put it mildly - a bit disturbing, but - fortunately - the guards were quite careful to make sure that all of the scalpels were turned in at the end of class. :shock:
Glenn
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Post by Glenn »

market timer said:
3 classes per semester, no research requirement, minor administrative duties. Maybe it's a benefit of working in a quantitative field without essay questions, but it's absolutely possible to do the above in 20 hours per week.
Sure...if you can look yourself in the mirror in the morning. I doubt you'd be doing a very good job or giving the students what they deserve.
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mlebuf
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Post by mlebuf »

Glenn wrote:Regarding Amy Bishop:
I suspect she will likely spend most or all of the rest of her days teaching Biology to inmates in Alabama.
When in grad school, I had a friend who taught biology in prison to the women of the Manson family. The lab dissections were - to put it mildly - a bit disturbing, but - fortunately - the guards were quite careful to make sure that all of the scalpels were turned in at the end of class. :shock:
Whoa! It sounds like your friend led an exciting life back then.... in a rather macabre sort of way. The thought of watching the Manson girls do dissections makes my skin crawl. For those too young to remember, the Manson family murders were some of the most gruesome of all time.
Best wishes, | Michael | | Invest your time actively and your money passively.
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