A student who is not on the job market this year wrote to ask me whether the stupendously bad job market will cause the starting salaries of philosophers to drop. On the one hand, it seems that new PhDs should be willing to work for less money. But obviously there are features of the process of hiring a new faculty member which would require universities to offer competitive salaries.
Anyway, I'm totally out of touch with what beginning salaries are like. What do beginning Assistant Profs make? Does anyone have any sense of whether the bad market is resulting in more modest starting salaries?
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This might be a good resource from CHE to some extent. The AAUP data is behind a pay-wall, but you can search faculty salaries by state and Institution.
I did a quick check--picked a state, NY, and then clicked on different universities and colleges. So, for instance things haven't gotten worse at Binghamton. And have improved even, at Queens CUNY. Skidmore seems to have taken a hit, as did NYU. SUNY Plattsburgh, bit of an increase.
Of course, none of these figures are philosophy only.
At my institution, salaries for incoming Assistant Profs in the humanities have remained constant, but the ancillary duties -- e.g., washing the dean's car, shoveling the chair's driveway, picking up senior faculty's dry cleaning -- have increased in number, intensity, and duration.
Salaries are sticky, and faculty salaries are especially so. Professors would raise a huge stink if starting salaries dropped, and administrators would feel very uncomfortable doing it. Over a long period I'm sure the bad market does/will depress starting salaries, but it's going to be a sluggish reaction.
I imagine that the current situation makes it all that much more difficult to negotiate the terms of the contract at the front end. When I finally managed to get a job a few years back, I tried my hand at negotiating. Some friends at my previous department did quite well at this. Nothing was the offer. The chair said that there was almost no chance that I'd get an offer from another department in the current market and so I could take the offer as offered or leave it.
I think starting salaries are between $50K and $60K. $60K only for rich, private universities. Sadly, the starting salary for HIGH SCHOOL teachers in NJ public schools is also around $50K. So glad I got my PhD...
@ anon December 25, 2010 10:25 AM
You went into philosophy for the money? That was dumb.
Remember, we get to teach university philosophy not remedial high school math (or whatever). I love teaching philosophy. I for one would do it for decent health insurance for my family and enough salary to afford a modest home (maybe a little bigger than my current 750 square feet). I'd imagine that in regions with low cost of living I could be quite a bargain compared to average starting salaries if anyone bothered to ask. (I have one interview this year). I won't wash anyone's car though.
I just got tenure at a small, decent regional university (no grad program). When I started I made around 42k. Starting TT faculty now make around 55k. There are various reasons for such an increase to occur over a relatively short period of time, but at least one of those reasons was that the university wanted to be more competitive in drawing in faculty--so I would guess that the current number is relatively standard at similar schools.
There are additional reasons that colleges are not likely to lower starting salaries for TT positions. For one thing, they want a TT hire to plan to stay at their university long term rather than go back on the market every year. This strategy will generally get them more loyalty from their hires and better candidates. Schools looking to save money will offer VAP contract positions instead. At least that's my guess.
I started a few years ago at a pretty big CC for $43k. That seems to be about where everyone I know rolls in.
I started a few years ago and got multiple offers. Salaries were $47K, $57K, and $70K. Guess which one I took.
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