Stop coddling underworked professors

last updated 8 January 2015

David C. Levy

The Washington Post

Most college professors are underworked and overpaid, said David C. Levy. A major factor in skyrocketing college tuition costs is the “upper-middle-class salaries” of faculty members who, in most cases, work about half the hours of other professionals. Senior faculty at state universities and even community colleges are pulling down $80,000 to $150,000 a year for teaching from nine to 15 hours a week—and they work for just 30 weeks a year, with summers off and a month-long winter break. Most professionals now work about 50 hours a week, 48 weeks a year. Admittedly, some professors at the country’s top research universities put in a lot of extra hours writing scholarly articles and conducting research. They earn their pay. But many professors do little or no research. They’ll tell you they need all that unstructured time for preparation, grading, and advising, but it’s “a myth” that such duties make up for their light schedules, or being on vacation for 22 weeks a year. With college tuitions escalating beyond all reason, America can’t afford this kind of gold-plated inefficiency. Paying coddled professors six-figure salaries for part-time jobs “is unsustainable.”