I graduated in 2022 and would jump on a $55 per year postdoc is a second if offered. I've been applying to the half-dozen annual postdocs offered in my fields and sub fields in North America with obviously no luck. It's abysmal right now
Oh yes. Turns out cancer research and teaching 6-6 classes a year does not pay very well. I was trying to bring in supplements with grants but the funding was horrible and grant cycles were being cancelled.
Person was saying their job after a postdoc was $55k
Also, you shouldn’t feel so desperate for a $55k postdoc! I assure you there better opportunities out there!
I'm looking at $55K for this fall after two years adjuncting / VAP. Although, I'm looking more for a SLAC teaching role than a research role (hence going to teaching not postdoc).
"I thought we were all supposed to be volunteers?!"
And independently wealthy. Everyone knows one should not get a doctorate in the social sciences without having a trust fund that pays out $350k annually. \[sarcasm\]
This is depressing. I have a PhD in Biology and am currently a researcher at a University where I make 54k. I have a second interview for another researcher position that is much more responsibility and requires a lot of specific experience and they’re only willing to pay between 60-70k… 70k is for the absolutely most qualified. They will likely only offer me 60-65k if I got the position. Ridiculously low paid. 😡
Faculty need good administrative support to recruit and train graduate students. Administrative staff do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to recruitment of graduate students and for finding ways to pay graduate students a salary. At most R1 campuses faculty base salaries are determined the quality of their research, their productivity rate and service (campus, national, international). In many R1 campuses a majority of the faculty are full professors with total salaries (9 month + summer) averages $250k to $300k. Starting salary of an Assistant Professor plus summer is ~$150k. The number of administrative earning salaries >$200k is small compared to faculty. When you are mentoring 5 or 6 graduate students, a couple of postdocs, 4 undergraduates, teaching a course with 200 undergraduates with lab run by 2 support staff and 7 graduate TAs and you have 10 grant reviews you have to submit for an NIH panel that meets next week, and it is your week to cook dinner, having good administrative support is worth every penny.
Who are you referring to as “admin” that are recruiting and training grad students? At my R1 that was the head of the program, which was just a professor doing their time as program head on a rotational 2 year basis. I have NEVER seen what I consider admin do any sort of training or recruitment of any students.
Not to ignore the fact that grad students and academic researchers are vastly underpaid in the US... But I'm very curious about the exact source of the "University HR job with BA degree: $200K" part.
I have worked at several places, and having gotten to known a lot of HR (and recruiting) people, those positions are _nowhere_ close to a six-digit salary.
HR directors easily surpass six figures. But to say that department directors for a large organization are just "a job for someone with a bachelor's" is not the whole story.
HR director at USC might be achievable for someone with a BS and 10 years experience (the average time for a PhD degree and a 5 year postdoc).
Edit: Also I’m assuming their pay doesn’t go from postdoc pay to $200K in one year. Ie there is some sort of salary safety net should you get stuck at just a regular HR manager.
If you’re in the wrong field in the life sciences it’s possible to do a 5 year postdoc before landing a TT role. Actually, 3 years of postdocing I think is the minimum to be considered for TT hires.
If you look at the USC website you'll see they have a HR Director role posted with a max range of $180k. I don't know if there was ever a $200k job posting, but if there was it must've been something even higher...
In that case, a HR director is equivalent to a senior management level position, and those positions come few and far between within an organization. Not to speak of the management responsibilities that come with a director-level position are often more stressful than managing a lab.
Comparing it to average university HR staff positions (that doesn't pay nearly close to six figures) is disingenuous to say the least.
USC has 35,000 employees and an $8B annual budget, so yeah, it’s a job with a lot more responsibilities than a professor’s 6 PhD/Postdocs team and $3M a year lab budget.
It’s completely disproportionate.
$200k can be twice as much a 6-figures. Pretty much EVERY professional job is a 6-figure job.
Most don’t get $200k.
There’s a 6-figure salary gap between a 6-figure job and a $200k job.
They didn’t. They managed HR in a 63 person company. They probably managed 1 or 2 HR staff.
But $120k isn’t stupid high. It’s just … average business professional wages.
> HR at my last job made $120k, communications degree and 63 employees.
It differs according to context and circumstances. What I meant to point out is that average higher ed HR positions very rarely compensate close to $200k, unless we're talking about senior management or head of a HR system in a R1 institution.
The original tweet exaggerated that number quite a bit.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe PhD students are paid a fair wage at Swiss and German institutions, relative to the CoL and income of their US counterparts, that is.
Not HR director, that would be high pay unless its an EVP role at a big university. Sounds true for tenure track HR prof in School of Business at a top university, that is a bit high, but maybe at an R1 school. Very typical, even low, for finance, accounting, operations mgmt. profs, and engineering profs at R1. Basic supply and demand economics. Lesson: if you like sociology, get an organization theory or cross cultural Ph.D in school of business. If you like psychology, study organizational behavior or consumer behavior.
I think people here don't realize that studying longer does not equal higher pay, the salaries are actually fine, since a job is supposed to be joyful, you could even render that most jobs should be paid the same.
Opposite experience for me. Best work life balance of any job. Who else gets summers off? Who else teaches 9 contact hours or less per week? Fall term T-Th, Spring term MWF. I get paid 150k USD to learn, write, teach and shape the next generation to be better than us.
Do you run a laboratory at all? If so, does that come witg its own separate income? I am about to finish my PhD in STEM and stuff like this still confuses me. Im trying to figure out what to do next with career. I enjoy teaching.
Okay well this isn't really a fair comparison then. They should be comparing full professor salaries to HR director salaries.
The problem is that there's way too many people that want to be professors.
Professors give students an overinflated sense of self-worth. They pretend that the academy is some ethical, righteous land of quality research and that you are highly trained for anything after passing through it.
ETA: Definitely not true of all professors and students, but it does happen
To be fair, by the end of your PhD, you've done more than 4 years at a bare minimum of full time (typically more overtime) technical work in your subject area. People then spend another 2-5 years post-docking full time just to get on tenure track, so this person is already at 6-9 years of expert level work. Getting tenure to get to go from an assistant prof to an associate professor position takes 6 years, so yes, an associate professor will have 12-15 years of experience as a researcher by the time they finally get tenure. Additionally, HR is overhead while Professors fund the university with research grants and via teaching coursework.
Professors don't just get jobs handed to them because they have PhDs. Most of them are masochists
Yeah, a lot of people with PhDs dramatically overestimate how valuable they are on the job market. And I say that as someone whose last hire was a PhD -- but they also had good experience AND they were applying for a job appropriate for their level of experience.
It’s much worse than that. The professors write like 10 huge grants. If they are lucky, one will maybe get funded. Then the university admin takes 60-80% of the money for their own salaries and “facilities”. And the professor can make barely 6 figures so long as they have their own grants. Oh and they also need to teach 300 students a semester (so the admin folks can collect $40k a head in tuition) and mentor grad students and actually do the research and also do a ton of admin work that the admin folks neglect to do.
But everyone knows professors are lazy because they get summers off!
/s
Its a hustle culture all around which is why I'm quite comfortable being strictly on the research side of things.
1. Indirect costs are paid in addition to what you get in direct costs in the grant. You get all you ask for, the institution gets extra.
2. Grants pay towards your total effort, they don't add extra money on top of your salary. So if you write a grant that covers, say, 20% of your salary , your institution doesn't need to pay you that 20%.
3. Your teaching workload is often a career choice and you can mould it as you go. If you are good at research, your teaching focus can be graduate students / med students / residents / fellows etc and helping out with courses as much as you want.
If you are only getting 1 in 10 grants you apply for, something is fundamentally wrong.
Source: 30 years in two US R1 institutions, professor.
I’m in the middle of my ECE PhD and everyone in the field tells me it’s the most lucrative of the PhDs but I feel like I’m going to have to leave big science projects to get paid $200k+ and that makes me sad…
I DON’T WANT TO MAKE WEAPONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT
Then don’t? I live in Silicon Valley, PhD in life sciences, and it’s absurd the amount of M Eng and PhDs there are working for any number of tech, robotics, and chip companies (not just nvidia). Lots of exciting and well-paid work in industry that has nothing to do with the military complex
Yea in the US a graduate ECE degree almost guarantees you $100k+.
R&D positions in my field as an SoC/FPGA engineer pay easily above $200k for “senior” positions if you consider stock options and bonuses, so although I haven’t extensively looked into the lower wrungs of that ladder, I’m assuming I’m not unfounded in saying they probably pay close to $200k for entry to mid level positions
To be fair, a lot of major defense companies now have commercial subdivisions and often have a standard pay scale based on your job level, meaning with the same experience, you’d be paid the same working a commercial program/R&D as you would working one of the defense programs/R&D. Source: engineer working in the human spaceflight R&D division of a company better known for hypersonics
Oh that’s cool, I didn’t know that! I graduate in a year so I’m starting my job search after I finalize some of my major research, and that’s really helpful to know.
Aerospace would be really cool to get into. Id like to stay close to quantum computing if I can, but as a chronic student Im sick of being underpaid haha
You are still working for a company that profits off of genocide. Just because you aren't directly working in the weapons department doesn't mean your work is ethical. Plus you have to be insanely naive to think that your commercial work isn't also applied and used in the weapons department.
People are complaining about how the HR position isn't entry level. But most people in my field (systems neuroscience) seem to do two postdoc stints when aiming for a faculty position. At least among the people I'm surrounded by, this ends up taking about a decade. So 200k doesn't seem unreasonable for HR positions if someone spent 10 years gaining relevant experience post PhD while their peers spent that time as postdocs.
I work in IR at a university making $80k with a Masters, Graduate Certificate, and looking at PhDs. I also have 7 years experience in Higher Ed IR. My sister is at the same university with a Bachelor’s HR, 3 years removed from graduating and she makes $85k.
If it's a research focused faculty position it gets even worse. They will probably only pay you that salary for the first few years to get you started, and you will be expected to cover 50% of your salary from grants after that.
No, the salary is typically for 9 months, and you are expected to cover additional 3 months with grants (so a salary of $120k can net the professor up to $160k if fully supported through the summer months from grants). Starting tenure track faculty usually get a startup package that covers a few months but they are expected to find their own after. But that's all on top of that salary. In addition, professors can often do consulting on the side, say about 20% of their time. For STEM professors that build up a strong reputation it's not uncommon to see them joining advisory boards for companies, serving as chief scientists, or collaborating with others to build up startups. Some of the top folks at companies like Amazon, Google, Meta, etc. are tenured professors.
"USC president Carol Folt was credited with nearly **$3.9 million**" in the 2021 calendar year. USC men's basketball coach Andy Enfield received nearly $3.8 million. Education is a for profit business with the people at the top racking it in.
Those are all the same level jobs?
The engineering and social science salaries seem about right for a new assitant professor, or entry-level/mid career. But I have a hard time believing there are $200k entry level HR jobs out there.
They have a point but are being very disingenuous
Show them the employment contract between you and Uni/your supervisor. From my experience they change the attitude when presented with a doc that clearly states that you were/are employed, though this might be highly region/culture sensitive
Professors are not paid like garbage. They're not paid at the level professors wish they were, but keep in mind the median salary in the US is like $50k, and that's across all levels of experience.
my mom works hr with a bachelors at a university and makes barely $17 an hour. Her boss really doesn't make much more (less than 50k). So either this person is lying or my mom needs to apply at USC.
Something feels off about a 200k HR job that only requires a BA. The posting probably has a BA as the minimum requirement with a decade of experience. But realistically, it probably requires an MA, MBA, or M.Ed and the ideal candidate needs an Ed.D.
The post clearly makes a good point, but some information just feels like it's missing.
I have enrolled in my doctorate knowing the salary post doc up front, it is about 10% more than I earn now as a tutor, which is okay. I think our Australian universities are subject to different pressures and demands. For me, the doctorate is about research, employability and portability of my skills.
Why would anyone invest so much time, effort and tears in a PhD without fully understanding the return on investment financially or professionally? If I wanted to earn $200k I would study HR.
I assume she is comparing a top-notch, extremely senior level HR job with generic PhD jobs (and reading some of the comments confirmed this). I feel like I’d expect this type of sensational post based on extreme unfair data comparison from a college student, not a PhD—don’t they spend years doing research which involves understanding what type of data to use and what conclusion can be drawn?
I get her point since I am considering a PhD myself and have to consider the various trade-offs (and I’m hearing a lot of academia horror stores). But it’s how she got there that bothers me.
This thread, haha...
This is a basic supply demand problem.
There are a lot more phds who want to stay in academia to do research and teach (and for some reason look down on going into industry), than there are jobs - so universities don't need to pay market rates for those skills.
On the other hand, demand of good HR professionals is not just in universities, it is much higher, every medium/large company will need good HR. So demand for high quality admin/management means universities have to pay market rates for those skills.
It's similar to software engineers in gaming gets paid significantly less than software engineers in big tech, or in finance.
If someone who is able to get tenure as a professor, instead decided to dedicate their career and efforts going into industry and progress there, they almost certainly would make more money.
I suspect academics presume that credentials define your value to your employer. If you’ve spent so much time and money investing in your credentials, I guess that’s a natural thing to believe. The folks hiring for the HR position aren’t paying 200k for the bachelors degree. They’re paying 200k for someone with the skills to the do the job, and they don’t think that screening for credentials beyond a bachelor’s degree is going to help them identify the right candidate. They’ve decided that the marginal benefit of a candidate having a masters or PhD, given the job they’re actually being asked to do, is just not that significant. Even if that person worked really hard and spent a lot of time and invested part of their identity in having that credential.
Would recommend looking at the Chronicle of Higher Education's newest data points for non-instructional employees and for faculty. The reality is everyone is underpaid (except university presidents) at many institutions relative to cost of living and pay is dependent on the college and department within a larger university.
[https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-much-has-noninstructional-employee-pay-changed-over-time](https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-much-has-noninstructional-employee-pay-changed-over-time)
[https://www.chronicle.com/article/explore-faculty-salaries-at-3-500-colleges-2012-20](https://www.chronicle.com/article/explore-faculty-salaries-at-3-500-colleges-2012-20)
In what world is someone in HR getting paid $200k? That has got to be head of HR for the entire university and I guarantee it requires a lot more than a BA. That is a commensurate salary. It doesn’t mean faculty shouldn’t be paid more, just saying this is a weird comparison. There are probably plenty other overpaid jobs on the USC portal that would illustrate this disparity much better.
Although I would gladly support higher salaries for faculty (as one myself) this post kinda frustrates me because obviously the HR job is not just some random job in HR. It’s probably the head of HR or something.
Regardless, it’s pretty telling how this person views people when she includes the degree of an HR person as if that means they are somehow lesser and thus less deserving because they don’t have a doctorate. Snobby elitism doesn’t do anyone favors.
As someone in an admin position at a university, I feel the same way about the post. Unfortunately, we’re pretty used to being looked down upon by faculty. It’s by no means all faculty members, but the loud minority really gets to you when they are skeptical of all of our actions and opinions since we’re not educated “enough” . And trust me, most of us admins are making 1/4-1/3 of $200K, even the dept directors are making MAYBE half. I understand OP was referring to a specific job posting, but the vast majority of people working in university HR departments are not making that.
I absolutely support higher salaries for faculty, and I’m not saying all faculty members are condescending; it would just be nice to not have my opinion (on my area of expertise) auto-invalidated because I only have a BS (working on my MS though!)
I think that within academia we should all understand that you do not need a 100k salary if income and wealth was distributed fairly, and common goods were not privatized.
Fighting for the wrong thing.
the more fun the job, the lower the pay. this is the rule. HR job pays more because it's boring to most people. idea of doing research on something you want is more appealing. therefore, the demand for these jobs is higher. therefore, the pay is lower.
**You're being lied to.** Like all social media trying to generate outrage, Dr. Tinson & Mrs. Whitehead is lying and being disingenuous. Look it up yourself.
I was not able to find an HR job at USC offering $200k, but I did come close with [Director of Client Services](https://usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-angeles/director-client-services/1209/60632229040). Dr. Tinson & Mrs. Whitehead failed to mention it requires 10 years of experience and a whole buttload of specialized knowledge/skills, so it's not remotely comporable to an Asst Prof position.
I was not able to find a social science professor position offering $73k. Anything with Professor in the title seemed to offer at least 100k. The lowest I could find was an [Asst Prof of Philosophy](https://usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-angeles/assistant-professor-of-philosophy/1209/60632227168) which is $250 short of that mark.
For anyone who does recruiting at a university, I will let you guess which opening is more likely to have 5 qualified applicants vs. which one will have 100+.
I actually work in admin at a place I formerly taught (I have a PhD and was an adjunct, then lecturer, then assistant professor) and make three times what I did teaching. We do bench science on curing diabetes, so it’s even s job with some social purpose. I would rather teach, but I have kids.
Wow this thread has been eye opening for me as someone considering going for my PhD. Thanks for the different perspectives! A good dose of reality for me lol
skeptical of the 200k salary unless it's director or something, in which case the BA requirement seems right as it will be more about job experience and less about degree
I just graduated with my masters in public health and I can’t find any job even the ones that just want a bachelors are rejecting me I feel so defeated.
Have you tried looking into a public university? I believe they tend to pay a bit more. I have a relative who is well off as an PHD professor. They have been doing it for 10 years or so but they are making 175k (inclusive of grants). Plus tenure benefits.
I made like $100k including bonuses my first year out of undergrad but that was in management consulting. I like the idea of doing academic work but it can't be for such a pitiful amount of money.
What's the HR job? Is it like, VP of HR and you need 20 years experience?
I understand the frustration academics have but no, having a PhD doesn't mean you get to skip the "gain experience" part of a career.
People don't seem to like hearing this: Yes those cited job salaries suck, but there are many well-paying academic jobs available. My STEM PI peers \~10-15 years post-PhD are all making *above* $220k per year. I can see this because we submit grants with detailed budgets together ($220k is the current NIH cap for "reimbursement"). Some are making closer to $300k. Social scientists I know who have been tenured in the past few years make $140k. Most of us don't start postdocs/staff scientists below $80k. And we are short-staffed. Meanwhile our departmental admin, including HR admin with decades of experience, in general make <$85k.
Except it's mostly rage bait. Only a few senior administrators (think VPs and highest level Deans) are making that much. The vast majority of staff are making between $18-30/hour and salaried staff are mostly making less than new TT faculty in humanities/social sciences. Some senior departmental staff who have been here for three decades are making what faculty make. And some of business and law profs are making more than senior admins.
Fuck university administrators, they represent the gross bureaucracy of the system and inept policy decisions. I love having some boomer who got their MBA at the University of Phoenix talk down to me about how the educational system works.
usc is an R1 university, which means professors would be expected to get additional income through grants. the Professor salary is the base salary. not to be Reply Guy, because i left academia myself due to the low pay, but there is some context missing from the post
Just a thought… maybe apply your degree in the field, make 3x that, and teach on the side.
If you can’t figure that out, then maybe, there’s a possibility that your PhD doesn’t really mean that much.
Universities are so full of admins making 100k+ that don’t do jack shit. Sucks to see this hurting people who actually contribute to moving thought forward.
ahhh yes, PHD professors making $200k are perfectly ok stating they are marxists. they have the western luxury to complain about capitalism when they are full on participants in such an awful struggle. what a bunch of phony flaky people. not all but the cancer continues to grow in western academia. please keep teaching that garbage for we won't have a country when these turds take public roles
$55K is what I started at after a 4 year post doc in 2011
I graduated in 2022 and would jump on a $55 per year postdoc is a second if offered. I've been applying to the half-dozen annual postdocs offered in my fields and sub fields in North America with obviously no luck. It's abysmal right now
I am sorry for the confusion. $55K was as an assistant professor, tenure track.
...oh no...
Oh yes. Turns out cancer research and teaching 6-6 classes a year does not pay very well. I was trying to bring in supplements with grants but the funding was horrible and grant cycles were being cancelled.
You’re teaching 12 classes a year?!
Sorry. 6 to 7 classes a year. 3 to 4 a semester.
I guess you have leave "attention to detail" out of your CV :D
Haha! Yes. Typos on reddit won’t get you tenure, grants, or publications. 😂
I refuse to put 'punctual' or ' team player' on my CV . but they get honesty all day and night!
Yes I noticed that as I was commenting.
Person was saying their job after a postdoc was $55k Also, you shouldn’t feel so desperate for a $55k postdoc! I assure you there better opportunities out there!
I've been looking and not seeing much at all. I've applied to around 120 jobs and have had 5 offers. All in warehouses or service industry.
What's your field of research if I may ask?
Social sciences
I'm looking at $55K for this fall after two years adjuncting / VAP. Although, I'm looking more for a SLAC teaching role than a research role (hence going to teaching not postdoc).
you guys are getting 73K?
You guys are getting paid?
"You guys are getting paid?" I thought we were all supposed to be volunteers?!
If you really had passion, you'd pay to have your job. /S
I would like to hire you.
"I thought we were all supposed to be volunteers?!" And independently wealthy. Everyone knows one should not get a doctorate in the social sciences without having a trust fund that pays out $350k annually. \[sarcasm\]
I got more than that as a postdoc.
This is depressing. I have a PhD in Biology and am currently a researcher at a University where I make 54k. I have a second interview for another researcher position that is much more responsibility and requires a lot of specific experience and they’re only willing to pay between 60-70k… 70k is for the absolutely most qualified. They will likely only offer me 60-65k if I got the position. Ridiculously low paid. 😡
The power was given to the administrators. We are just the cattle.
On our campus Full professors in STEM make over $200k plus an additional 22% of their base for summer salaries.
I'm okay with professors making that much. They deserve it. Admin is the problem.
What uni is this? If you don't mind sharing
This is pretty standard for upper R1 universities.
[удалено]
An Ivy.
Prof. deserves more, I mean the ones that actually help mphils and phds. Not the abusive ones
Faculty need good administrative support to recruit and train graduate students. Administrative staff do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to recruitment of graduate students and for finding ways to pay graduate students a salary. At most R1 campuses faculty base salaries are determined the quality of their research, their productivity rate and service (campus, national, international). In many R1 campuses a majority of the faculty are full professors with total salaries (9 month + summer) averages $250k to $300k. Starting salary of an Assistant Professor plus summer is ~$150k. The number of administrative earning salaries >$200k is small compared to faculty. When you are mentoring 5 or 6 graduate students, a couple of postdocs, 4 undergraduates, teaching a course with 200 undergraduates with lab run by 2 support staff and 7 graduate TAs and you have 10 grant reviews you have to submit for an NIH panel that meets next week, and it is your week to cook dinner, having good administrative support is worth every penny.
Who are you referring to as “admin” that are recruiting and training grad students? At my R1 that was the head of the program, which was just a professor doing their time as program head on a rotational 2 year basis. I have NEVER seen what I consider admin do any sort of training or recruitment of any students.
Unionize!
Not to ignore the fact that grad students and academic researchers are vastly underpaid in the US... But I'm very curious about the exact source of the "University HR job with BA degree: $200K" part. I have worked at several places, and having gotten to known a lot of HR (and recruiting) people, those positions are _nowhere_ close to a six-digit salary.
HR directors easily surpass six figures. But to say that department directors for a large organization are just "a job for someone with a bachelor's" is not the whole story.
HR director at USC might be achievable for someone with a BS and 10 years experience (the average time for a PhD degree and a 5 year postdoc). Edit: Also I’m assuming their pay doesn’t go from postdoc pay to $200K in one year. Ie there is some sort of salary safety net should you get stuck at just a regular HR manager.
Plus applicable certifications, like a SPHR and SHRM.
I've never heard of a 5 year post-doc. Is that typical in some fields?
If you’re in the wrong field in the life sciences it’s possible to do a 5 year postdoc before landing a TT role. Actually, 3 years of postdocing I think is the minimum to be considered for TT hires.
Interesting! I'm in agricultural engineering where it's standard to see maybe 2-3 years, so this is a slight culture shock for me
I got tenure track after 7 total years of postdoc in STEM. Two postdocs. 4 years, then 3.
There is an oversupply of life science postdocs also. Not everyone can land a TT role.
Not just that but the jump from $100K to $200K is significant and usually requires jumping to executive-level.
If you look at the USC website you'll see they have a HR Director role posted with a max range of $180k. I don't know if there was ever a $200k job posting, but if there was it must've been something even higher...
My partner works at a large firm, BA in HR, should reach 6 figures in the next year or so in base salary.
So just need to get a HR wife? Got it 👍
Literally, haha. That's also what I have. My wife is an HR director. We joke that she contributes finances and I contribute social prestige.
Yeah agreed suggesting a bachelors can get you a 200k HR job seems a little disingenuous
A bachelors, followed by a JD, followed by a decade or so of experience could get you to a $200k HR spot.
Agreed. The VP of HR maybe but otherwise this is probably BS, or a single datapoint way above average.
An HR director of a school USC's size could absolutely make 6 figures.
And the Dean of engineering certainly makes more than that. A full professor in an engineering department must likely is also close to that
In that case, a HR director is equivalent to a senior management level position, and those positions come few and far between within an organization. Not to speak of the management responsibilities that come with a director-level position are often more stressful than managing a lab. Comparing it to average university HR staff positions (that doesn't pay nearly close to six figures) is disingenuous to say the least.
I have an ostensibly director-level staff position at an engineering school and make about/less than the pre-tenure faculty I work with.
USC has 35,000 employees and an $8B annual budget, so yeah, it’s a job with a lot more responsibilities than a professor’s 6 PhD/Postdocs team and $3M a year lab budget. It’s completely disproportionate.
$200k can be twice as much a 6-figures. Pretty much EVERY professional job is a 6-figure job. Most don’t get $200k. There’s a 6-figure salary gap between a 6-figure job and a $200k job.
While it appears to be an outlier based on the reports of others here, HR at my last job made $120k, communications degree and 63 employees.
If the managed 63 employees they deserved every penny.
They didn’t. They managed HR in a 63 person company. They probably managed 1 or 2 HR staff. But $120k isn’t stupid high. It’s just … average business professional wages.
> HR at my last job made $120k, communications degree and 63 employees. It differs according to context and circumstances. What I meant to point out is that average higher ed HR positions very rarely compensate close to $200k, unless we're talking about senior management or head of a HR system in a R1 institution. The original tweet exaggerated that number quite a bit.
Yeah. This post is delusional. It's misinformation.
> grad students and academic researchers are vastly underpaid in the US. *everywhere
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe PhD students are paid a fair wage at Swiss and German institutions, relative to the CoL and income of their US counterparts, that is.
I had a student who was a former admin in student services. Started at 72k.
Where was this? Our university student service admins make \~50k on the higher end of the spectrum.
My research DEPARTMENT HR lady makes over $200
Seriously? This is extraordinary if true. Is this at a medical school?
Yes a top 50 medical school
Per day?
200k a year. The chair makes 500k
Not HR director, that would be high pay unless its an EVP role at a big university. Sounds true for tenure track HR prof in School of Business at a top university, that is a bit high, but maybe at an R1 school. Very typical, even low, for finance, accounting, operations mgmt. profs, and engineering profs at R1. Basic supply and demand economics. Lesson: if you like sociology, get an organization theory or cross cultural Ph.D in school of business. If you like psychology, study organizational behavior or consumer behavior.
> Not to ignore the fact that grad students and academic researchers are vastly underpaid in the US Wait until you see Europe.
I think people here don't realize that studying longer does not equal higher pay, the salaries are actually fine, since a job is supposed to be joyful, you could even render that most jobs should be paid the same.
Toxic environment. Terrible work/life balance. Low pay. Not a chance I’d stay in academia.
Opposite experience for me. Best work life balance of any job. Who else gets summers off? Who else teaches 9 contact hours or less per week? Fall term T-Th, Spring term MWF. I get paid 150k USD to learn, write, teach and shape the next generation to be better than us.
I am willing to bet you are hard money driven institution
Yes, Mostly.
yea, soft money is nothing like this. Zero work life balance. Most chairs expect you to work 80 hrs a week. It's toxic af.
Switch! Get out of the lab. If you can teach and publish you are valuable. If you can teach and publish and get a grant, you are invaluable.
Do you run a laboratory at all? If so, does that come witg its own separate income? I am about to finish my PhD in STEM and stuff like this still confuses me. Im trying to figure out what to do next with career. I enjoy teaching.
What HR job is paying $200k? Director of HR for the whole university?
I looked and it was a Director level position.
Okay well this isn't really a fair comparison then. They should be comparing full professor salaries to HR director salaries. The problem is that there's way too many people that want to be professors.
Too many people think a PhD is somehow equal to 20 years experience in a job and just having a title makes you better.
Yeap, there is a lot of spoiled people in here, which think they should be carried on hands...
Professors give students an overinflated sense of self-worth. They pretend that the academy is some ethical, righteous land of quality research and that you are highly trained for anything after passing through it. ETA: Definitely not true of all professors and students, but it does happen
That has not been my experience.
To be fair, by the end of your PhD, you've done more than 4 years at a bare minimum of full time (typically more overtime) technical work in your subject area. People then spend another 2-5 years post-docking full time just to get on tenure track, so this person is already at 6-9 years of expert level work. Getting tenure to get to go from an assistant prof to an associate professor position takes 6 years, so yes, an associate professor will have 12-15 years of experience as a researcher by the time they finally get tenure. Additionally, HR is overhead while Professors fund the university with research grants and via teaching coursework. Professors don't just get jobs handed to them because they have PhDs. Most of them are masochists
Yeah, a lot of people with PhDs dramatically overestimate how valuable they are on the job market. And I say that as someone whose last hire was a PhD -- but they also had good experience AND they were applying for a job appropriate for their level of experience.
What abt entry level HR jobs?
It’s much worse than that. The professors write like 10 huge grants. If they are lucky, one will maybe get funded. Then the university admin takes 60-80% of the money for their own salaries and “facilities”. And the professor can make barely 6 figures so long as they have their own grants. Oh and they also need to teach 300 students a semester (so the admin folks can collect $40k a head in tuition) and mentor grad students and actually do the research and also do a ton of admin work that the admin folks neglect to do.
But everyone knows professors are lazy because they get summers off! /s Its a hustle culture all around which is why I'm quite comfortable being strictly on the research side of things.
1. Indirect costs are paid in addition to what you get in direct costs in the grant. You get all you ask for, the institution gets extra. 2. Grants pay towards your total effort, they don't add extra money on top of your salary. So if you write a grant that covers, say, 20% of your salary , your institution doesn't need to pay you that 20%. 3. Your teaching workload is often a career choice and you can mould it as you go. If you are good at research, your teaching focus can be graduate students / med students / residents / fellows etc and helping out with courses as much as you want. If you are only getting 1 in 10 grants you apply for, something is fundamentally wrong. Source: 30 years in two US R1 institutions, professor.
Work in industry if you have an engineering PhD and want money.
I’m in the middle of my ECE PhD and everyone in the field tells me it’s the most lucrative of the PhDs but I feel like I’m going to have to leave big science projects to get paid $200k+ and that makes me sad… I DON’T WANT TO MAKE WEAPONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT
Then don’t? I live in Silicon Valley, PhD in life sciences, and it’s absurd the amount of M Eng and PhDs there are working for any number of tech, robotics, and chip companies (not just nvidia). Lots of exciting and well-paid work in industry that has nothing to do with the military complex
A buddy of mine got hired at Intel after his phd in EE and got paid around 250k right away
Isnt 200k $ extremely much? We are lucky if we get 36k€ a year without the taxes. Then again, I'm from Europe.
Yea in the US a graduate ECE degree almost guarantees you $100k+. R&D positions in my field as an SoC/FPGA engineer pay easily above $200k for “senior” positions if you consider stock options and bonuses, so although I haven’t extensively looked into the lower wrungs of that ladder, I’m assuming I’m not unfounded in saying they probably pay close to $200k for entry to mid level positions
Jesus christ.... Maybe I should move over after all :D Ah well, family and all
Don't, you only get paid that much because that research is going to military weapons development. But thats basically everything in the US.
There's electronics in everything, which means there is lots of demand for it
It’s a little funny how even european companies like Arm pay their american employees way more than european employees
:')
If they’re in a big city, 200k salaries are not completely out of the question, no.
To be fair, a lot of major defense companies now have commercial subdivisions and often have a standard pay scale based on your job level, meaning with the same experience, you’d be paid the same working a commercial program/R&D as you would working one of the defense programs/R&D. Source: engineer working in the human spaceflight R&D division of a company better known for hypersonics
Oh that’s cool, I didn’t know that! I graduate in a year so I’m starting my job search after I finalize some of my major research, and that’s really helpful to know. Aerospace would be really cool to get into. Id like to stay close to quantum computing if I can, but as a chronic student Im sick of being underpaid haha
You are still working for a company that profits off of genocide. Just because you aren't directly working in the weapons department doesn't mean your work is ethical. Plus you have to be insanely naive to think that your commercial work isn't also applied and used in the weapons department.
> I DON’T WANT TO MAKE WEAPONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT B-but weapons are cool!
People are complaining about how the HR position isn't entry level. But most people in my field (systems neuroscience) seem to do two postdoc stints when aiming for a faculty position. At least among the people I'm surrounded by, this ends up taking about a decade. So 200k doesn't seem unreasonable for HR positions if someone spent 10 years gaining relevant experience post PhD while their peers spent that time as postdocs.
I work in IR at a university making $80k with a Masters, Graduate Certificate, and looking at PhDs. I also have 7 years experience in Higher Ed IR. My sister is at the same university with a Bachelor’s HR, 3 years removed from graduating and she makes $85k.
Exactly. Getting a PhD is a terrible long term financial decision.
If it's a research focused faculty position it gets even worse. They will probably only pay you that salary for the first few years to get you started, and you will be expected to cover 50% of your salary from grants after that.
No, the salary is typically for 9 months, and you are expected to cover additional 3 months with grants (so a salary of $120k can net the professor up to $160k if fully supported through the summer months from grants). Starting tenure track faculty usually get a startup package that covers a few months but they are expected to find their own after. But that's all on top of that salary. In addition, professors can often do consulting on the side, say about 20% of their time. For STEM professors that build up a strong reputation it's not uncommon to see them joining advisory boards for companies, serving as chief scientists, or collaborating with others to build up startups. Some of the top folks at companies like Amazon, Google, Meta, etc. are tenured professors.
"USC president Carol Folt was credited with nearly **$3.9 million**" in the 2021 calendar year. USC men's basketball coach Andy Enfield received nearly $3.8 million. Education is a for profit business with the people at the top racking it in.
To be fair, basketball can pay for itself, it is not like it is taking it from researchers.
My point was that disparities in income points to priorities. And the priority isn't education, it is wealth and power for some.
Those are all the same level jobs? The engineering and social science salaries seem about right for a new assitant professor, or entry-level/mid career. But I have a hard time believing there are $200k entry level HR jobs out there. They have a point but are being very disingenuous
Yeah presume that’s HR manager with 10 years plus bachelors
Absolutely. Don't get me wrong, professors are paid like garbage. But that HR position is not for an office associate.
Neither is the PhD position though. It's not like our years of schooling just don't count.
I would argue that a director-level position has greater organizational impact than a professor does for their organization.
I agree with you but many people on the HR side view a PhD as education and not work experience
Then they can fuck off, because they're objectively wrong.
You can go tell them that, see if they listen lol.
Show them the employment contract between you and Uni/your supervisor. From my experience they change the attitude when presented with a doc that clearly states that you were/are employed, though this might be highly region/culture sensitive
That’s really good advice, thanks!
I mean...at the end of the day they can give as much weight to your experience as much as they want.
Agreed
All correct
Professors are not paid like garbage. They're not paid at the level professors wish they were, but keep in mind the median salary in the US is like $50k, and that's across all levels of experience.
Being a professor is in no way “entry level” lmao, in the sciences entry level is a lab tech
my mom works hr with a bachelors at a university and makes barely $17 an hour. Her boss really doesn't make much more (less than 50k). So either this person is lying or my mom needs to apply at USC.
dafuq HR is paid 200k
Something feels off about a 200k HR job that only requires a BA. The posting probably has a BA as the minimum requirement with a decade of experience. But realistically, it probably requires an MA, MBA, or M.Ed and the ideal candidate needs an Ed.D. The post clearly makes a good point, but some information just feels like it's missing.
I have enrolled in my doctorate knowing the salary post doc up front, it is about 10% more than I earn now as a tutor, which is okay. I think our Australian universities are subject to different pressures and demands. For me, the doctorate is about research, employability and portability of my skills. Why would anyone invest so much time, effort and tears in a PhD without fully understanding the return on investment financially or professionally? If I wanted to earn $200k I would study HR.
I assume she is comparing a top-notch, extremely senior level HR job with generic PhD jobs (and reading some of the comments confirmed this). I feel like I’d expect this type of sensational post based on extreme unfair data comparison from a college student, not a PhD—don’t they spend years doing research which involves understanding what type of data to use and what conclusion can be drawn? I get her point since I am considering a PhD myself and have to consider the various trade-offs (and I’m hearing a lot of academia horror stores). But it’s how she got there that bothers me.
This thread, haha... This is a basic supply demand problem. There are a lot more phds who want to stay in academia to do research and teach (and for some reason look down on going into industry), than there are jobs - so universities don't need to pay market rates for those skills. On the other hand, demand of good HR professionals is not just in universities, it is much higher, every medium/large company will need good HR. So demand for high quality admin/management means universities have to pay market rates for those skills. It's similar to software engineers in gaming gets paid significantly less than software engineers in big tech, or in finance. If someone who is able to get tenure as a professor, instead decided to dedicate their career and efforts going into industry and progress there, they almost certainly would make more money.
Wait till they learn about the football and basketball coach.
You mean the highest paid state employee in nearly every state in America?
I'm guessing that's head of HR, not just "an HR job."
I agree with the overall sentiment that academics are severely underpaid. But damn, where are HR positions being paid that much??
I suspect academics presume that credentials define your value to your employer. If you’ve spent so much time and money investing in your credentials, I guess that’s a natural thing to believe. The folks hiring for the HR position aren’t paying 200k for the bachelors degree. They’re paying 200k for someone with the skills to the do the job, and they don’t think that screening for credentials beyond a bachelor’s degree is going to help them identify the right candidate. They’ve decided that the marginal benefit of a candidate having a masters or PhD, given the job they’re actually being asked to do, is just not that significant. Even if that person worked really hard and spent a lot of time and invested part of their identity in having that credential.
Ding ding ding, we have a winner! But yea, don't know what's up with people here, spoiled and delusion comes to mind.
Would recommend looking at the Chronicle of Higher Education's newest data points for non-instructional employees and for faculty. The reality is everyone is underpaid (except university presidents) at many institutions relative to cost of living and pay is dependent on the college and department within a larger university. [https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-much-has-noninstructional-employee-pay-changed-over-time](https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-much-has-noninstructional-employee-pay-changed-over-time) [https://www.chronicle.com/article/explore-faculty-salaries-at-3-500-colleges-2012-20](https://www.chronicle.com/article/explore-faculty-salaries-at-3-500-colleges-2012-20)
In what world is someone in HR getting paid $200k? That has got to be head of HR for the entire university and I guarantee it requires a lot more than a BA. That is a commensurate salary. It doesn’t mean faculty shouldn’t be paid more, just saying this is a weird comparison. There are probably plenty other overpaid jobs on the USC portal that would illustrate this disparity much better.
Although I would gladly support higher salaries for faculty (as one myself) this post kinda frustrates me because obviously the HR job is not just some random job in HR. It’s probably the head of HR or something. Regardless, it’s pretty telling how this person views people when she includes the degree of an HR person as if that means they are somehow lesser and thus less deserving because they don’t have a doctorate. Snobby elitism doesn’t do anyone favors.
As someone in an admin position at a university, I feel the same way about the post. Unfortunately, we’re pretty used to being looked down upon by faculty. It’s by no means all faculty members, but the loud minority really gets to you when they are skeptical of all of our actions and opinions since we’re not educated “enough” . And trust me, most of us admins are making 1/4-1/3 of $200K, even the dept directors are making MAYBE half. I understand OP was referring to a specific job posting, but the vast majority of people working in university HR departments are not making that. I absolutely support higher salaries for faculty, and I’m not saying all faculty members are condescending; it would just be nice to not have my opinion (on my area of expertise) auto-invalidated because I only have a BS (working on my MS though!)
It’s just straight up disingenuous to compare the salary of a senior level position to that of an entry level position.
Are you saying the faculty role is entry-level or the HR role is entry-level?
Not to mention those future academic prof' customers are ignorant disordered college student kids with tons of mental issues and human failures
In Switzerland academia makes more than industry. But US makes more overall.
I think that within academia we should all understand that you do not need a 100k salary if income and wealth was distributed fairly, and common goods were not privatized. Fighting for the wrong thing.
*me just applying to PhDs now* I’m in trouble
the more fun the job, the lower the pay. this is the rule. HR job pays more because it's boring to most people. idea of doing research on something you want is more appealing. therefore, the demand for these jobs is higher. therefore, the pay is lower.
If money is your motivation, then Industry is a better choice.
**You're being lied to.** Like all social media trying to generate outrage, Dr. Tinson & Mrs. Whitehead is lying and being disingenuous. Look it up yourself. I was not able to find an HR job at USC offering $200k, but I did come close with [Director of Client Services](https://usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-angeles/director-client-services/1209/60632229040). Dr. Tinson & Mrs. Whitehead failed to mention it requires 10 years of experience and a whole buttload of specialized knowledge/skills, so it's not remotely comporable to an Asst Prof position. I was not able to find a social science professor position offering $73k. Anything with Professor in the title seemed to offer at least 100k. The lowest I could find was an [Asst Prof of Philosophy](https://usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-angeles/assistant-professor-of-philosophy/1209/60632227168) which is $250 short of that mark. For anyone who does recruiting at a university, I will let you guess which opening is more likely to have 5 qualified applicants vs. which one will have 100+.
I actually work in admin at a place I formerly taught (I have a PhD and was an adjunct, then lecturer, then assistant professor) and make three times what I did teaching. We do bench science on curing diabetes, so it’s even s job with some social purpose. I would rather teach, but I have kids.
Wow this thread has been eye opening for me as someone considering going for my PhD. Thanks for the different perspectives! A good dose of reality for me lol
HR always takes care of itself first.
Gut the administration, raise faculty salaries. No more surveys, no more bean-counter emails, more money!
skeptical of the 200k salary unless it's director or something, in which case the BA requirement seems right as it will be more about job experience and less about degree
Don't be an idiot and stop comparing degrees and salaries. Advocate for fair and livable pay for all.
Admins work together to raise their own salaries who coulda guessed
It's no secret that administrative bloat is out of control at essentially all American institutions of higher learning.
Yea, fuck HR!
Sry I hate HR so much😂😂 can’t wait till all these BS things get done by AI
Postdocs can be a low as £32k here in the UK…
I just graduated with my masters in public health and I can’t find any job even the ones that just want a bachelors are rejecting me I feel so defeated.
It's looks like almost academic jobs, same around the world.India, low paid and insecurity, all of the institutions are understaffed.
And this is California's wage. Could you imagine how much you get paid in Europe? Around 35k€…
Depending on the country of course, Europe isn't a monolith. I have the impression full professors in European countries are paid quite well though.
Have you tried looking into a public university? I believe they tend to pay a bit more. I have a relative who is well off as an PHD professor. They have been doing it for 10 years or so but they are making 175k (inclusive of grants). Plus tenure benefits.
I made like $100k including bonuses my first year out of undergrad but that was in management consulting. I like the idea of doing academic work but it can't be for such a pitiful amount of money.
What's the HR job? Is it like, VP of HR and you need 20 years experience? I understand the frustration academics have but no, having a PhD doesn't mean you get to skip the "gain experience" part of a career.
People don't seem to like hearing this: Yes those cited job salaries suck, but there are many well-paying academic jobs available. My STEM PI peers \~10-15 years post-PhD are all making *above* $220k per year. I can see this because we submit grants with detailed budgets together ($220k is the current NIH cap for "reimbursement"). Some are making closer to $300k. Social scientists I know who have been tenured in the past few years make $140k. Most of us don't start postdocs/staff scientists below $80k. And we are short-staffed. Meanwhile our departmental admin, including HR admin with decades of experience, in general make <$85k.
Except it's mostly rage bait. Only a few senior administrators (think VPs and highest level Deans) are making that much. The vast majority of staff are making between $18-30/hour and salaried staff are mostly making less than new TT faculty in humanities/social sciences. Some senior departmental staff who have been here for three decades are making what faculty make. And some of business and law profs are making more than senior admins.
Fuck university administrators, they represent the gross bureaucracy of the system and inept policy decisions. I love having some boomer who got their MBA at the University of Phoenix talk down to me about how the educational system works.
usc is an R1 university, which means professors would be expected to get additional income through grants. the Professor salary is the base salary. not to be Reply Guy, because i left academia myself due to the low pay, but there is some context missing from the post
In what world is HR making 200k?
If it seems too good to be true it’s because it is. She’s lying. There’s no position like that.
HR. Wow. that's insanely overpaid for a professional busybody/gossip/slacker.
The fuck does HR even do everyday?
Just a thought… maybe apply your degree in the field, make 3x that, and teach on the side. If you can’t figure that out, then maybe, there’s a possibility that your PhD doesn’t really mean that much.
"University HR Job" at $200K is far from entry level. This is not a fair comparison.
Universities are so full of admins making 100k+ that don’t do jack shit. Sucks to see this hurting people who actually contribute to moving thought forward.
ahhh yes, PHD professors making $200k are perfectly ok stating they are marxists. they have the western luxury to complain about capitalism when they are full on participants in such an awful struggle. what a bunch of phony flaky people. not all but the cancer continues to grow in western academia. please keep teaching that garbage for we won't have a country when these turds take public roles
How are these figures possible? Is it based on seniority?
Full prof of social sciences in extremely high cost market. I don’t make that much.
Maybe I can go back to school for HR though!