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Comment by jdeibele | Hacker News Reader

Picking a state that's not California nor New York, Massachusetts, etc.: https://www.indeed.com/career/assistant-professor/salaries/A...

Says $60,000 for University of Arkansas or 2/3rd of what was listed for California.

I'm not an academic nor do I live in California (or Arkansas) but $90,000/year after 6 years working below minimum wage and 6 years barely above doesn't sound that great in <economic terms>. Hopefully people are getting benefits from teaching or research.

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Except that is where the majority of research is done, where the prestigious schools and students are, and where those people want to live. Plenty of good research gets done in Arkansas, and Texas, and North Carolina, but not in the cheap parts. It happens in Research Triangle, or Austin, or Fayetteville. It doesn't happen at Oachita Baptist College in Arkadelphia.

The somewhat good news is that people get into science and medicine because they believe in them, and they're often willing to work for peanuts so that big pharma can take their work and charge Medicare $80k/yr for a new drug that might work.

There's huge problems in academia and it's incentive structure, but I don't think they're related to be being in urban vs rural America (they exist just as badly in Europe, China, and India)

it also depends on the lab.

It's a very small world for various reasons and sometimes, there's a good combination between a PI and a hosting institution. Sometimes there's not. If the guy who's doing what you want to do has his lab at UAB, you go to UAB. That being said, once you get your K23 or R01, because of NIH matching funds, you have more of a choice of where you go.

Those places you list have gone up painfully in a relative sense (like everywhere lately) but are nothing like the absurdity of California. You don't need two highly-paid professional incomes to afford a house with a long commute. There's also Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, central Florida, many others.

$60K is very hard to believe. I wouldn't trust indeed.com for faculty salaries.

For one thing, the variance is high between departments. Engineering gets paid a lot more than history, for example.

According to https://www.univstats.com/salary/university-of-arkansas/facu..., assistant professor is $91K. The caveats still apply - some likely get a lot more, and some a lot less.

Fortunately, it's a public university, so we can see actual salaries:

https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiZGM3Yzg2YzMtNDY3YS00N...

Looking at some random assistant professors in relevant departments, I see:

One who earns $113K

Another who earns $94K

Another who earns $96K.

These are regular departments, (biochemistry, biology, etc). Not medical departments. I'm sure those ones get paid more (e.g. one I personally knew in Houston got $180K in a public university in Dallas).

So mid $90's would be my guess.

Then note that these are 9 month salaries, and the typical deal is they get up to a third more from grants (their "summer" salary). So total compensation for assistant professors would be about $120K.

Faculty salaries are not that bad, as a rule. What's really bad is the number of years they spend trying to get a postdoc.

for biomedical, it is what your grant stipulates. I.e. I think way back when, K23's paid $98k for 75% time (or maybe 70%) and your institution agreed to pay the rest. Sometimes, they would actually pay you more to try and get close to fair market value, but that is if the department is generous. For famous institutions, like UCLA, or Brigham and Women's, the law of supply and demand is not on your side bc if you don't like the low salary, there's a giant line of wannabes waiting to take your spot.

Are you sure that those are 9 month salaries?

Published historical pay will be 12 month salaries. Most non tenured professors will refuse the optional summer salary and work all summer for free, because they have to pay for it from their own grants- it means hiring one less student, and less chance of getting tenure.

Fairly certain. It's also in line with salaries I know from other departments. This is the "fixed" amount of the salary. The grant portion is variable, and also not paid by the state, so it's usually not required by the law to disclose.

You mean hire one or get one?

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