But senior, tenured faculty at elite schools are firmly entrenched in the well-compensated professional class (top salaries at elite schools often exceed $150,000; and for scholars in economics, business and law schools, earnings can be substantially in excess of that) with superior benefits, such as university-subsided housing, lifetime heath care and seven-figure retirement accounts. Once tenure has been achieved, generally after less than ten years of work, top college teachers face no professional risk and, by and large, teach three or fewer courses a semester.
3 courses per semester is a lot of work if you're doing it right, especially when you consider the amount of time research can take. 8-10 hours per week is a good estimate of the amount of time each class takes.
Also, very few professors make $150k-- those are the stars-- and they tend to be in their late 30s if not 40s. Academic pay is 1/5 to 1/10 of what it is in other industries (and yes, it's harder to become a tenured professor than to make $1 million/year on Wall Street).
American tuition is ridiculous, but overcompensation of teaching staff is not the problem. With tuition at $40,000/year for 10 classes, that's $4000 per class. If average class size is 25, that's $100k for 150 hours of the professor's work ($667/hour). So a professor is bringing in $500+k through teaching alone. For that professor to be making $65k (more realistic than the $150k figure) is not overcompensation.
3 courses per semester is a lot of work if you're doing it right, especially when you consider the amount of time research can take. 8-10 hours per week is a good estimate of the amount of time each class takes.
Also, very few professors make $150k-- those are the stars-- and they tend to be in their late 30s if not 40s. Academic pay is 1/5 to 1/10 of what it is in other industries (and yes, it's harder to become a tenured professor than to make $1 million/year on Wall Street).
American tuition is ridiculous, but overcompensation of teaching staff is not the problem. With tuition at $40,000/year for 10 classes, that's $4000 per class. If average class size is 25, that's $100k for 150 hours of the professor's work ($667/hour). So a professor is bringing in $500+k through teaching alone. For that professor to be making $65k (more realistic than the $150k figure) is not overcompensation.