Study: Higher ed bubble could be solved by getting

what ask professors to work more ........

Study: Higher ed bubble could be solved by getting faculty to teach more

Tuition costs for higher education double the pace of inflation, while more Americans believe higher ed is no longer affordable and question whether it is even a good value. At the same time, taxpayers are on the hook for ever increasing costs to support public universities. What should we do to bring costs back in line, while protecting university research and deliver more value for the cost of tuition at the same time? And given the strong incentives to maintain the status quo, what can we do?

A distinguished economics professor at Ohio University may have an answer. Dr. Richard Vedder studied faculty activities at the University of Texas at Austin and found that tuition rates could be lowered by doing one thing: Get more faculty to spend more time in the classroom. This would also reduce taxpayer liability to support the public university by getting more productivity out of university faculty, many of whom make near $250,000 apiece in salary plus benefits.

The Center for College Affordability and Productivity conducted the study titled “Faculty Productivity and Costs at The University of Texas at Austin.” The study assesses faculty productivity at UT-Austin in terms of both research and teaching by delving into the data on faculty compensation, teaching loads and external research grant awards released by the University of Texas system.

“Our analysis shows that there is clearly room for improvement in terms of faculty productivity at UT Austin,” said Dr. Richard Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity and a co-author of the study. “Simply by having faculty teach more students or courses, students and taxpayers will benefit significantly by reduced university costs.”


Dr. Vedder says the findings are preliminary, but revealing:

* 20 percent of UT Austin faculty are teaching 57 percent of student credit hours. They also generate 18 percent of the campus’s research funding. This suggests that these faculty are not jeopardizing their status as researchers by assuming such a high level of teaching responsibility.
* Conversely, the least productive 20 percent of faculty teach only 2 percent of all student credit hours and generate a disproportionately smaller percentage of external research funding than do other segments of the faculty. (must be nice to not work and get paid full salary)
* Research grant funds go almost entirely (99.8 percent) to a small minority (20 percent) of the faculty; only 2 percent of the faculty conduct 57 percent of funded research.
* Non-tenured track faculty teach a majority of undergraduate enrollments and a surprising 31 percent of graduate enrollments.
* The most active researchers teach nearly the average of all faculty; increasing teaching loads of others would trivially impact outside research support.

this is disturbing ........ but then, I heard years ago SA's were doing most of the class work ... while the Ward Churchill's of world took credit

[philibusters]

The article does bring up a good point. A professor who is only teaching two 3credit classes a semester (none in the summer) is probably only teaching for 6 hours a week. If you double that to 12, it will be a little tougher on faculty at first as they rearrange their schedules and priorities, but ultimately could save students a lot of tuition money.

As for the claim a lot of professors make $250,000 a year when their salary is added to their benefits that seems high. Its probably more true in the hard sciences, business, econ, law, and medical departments as a lot of those professors have base salaries between $100,000 and $200,000. However when you get to the liberal arts and social sciences a lot of fully tenured professors only make like $80,000 (somebody with 15+ years of experience) and assistant professors make like $40,000 so it would be a shocker if they compensation totaled $250,000.

[philibusters]

Originally Posted by EmptyTimCup

what ask professors to work more ........





this is disturbing ........ but then, I heard years ago SA's were doing most of the class work ... while the Ward Churchill's of world took credit

When I was in school the professors did all the work (including grading) in smaller type classes (40 students), but for the big lectures (300 students) they had TA's help them.

[DipStick]

The numbers in the article seem way high.

$250,000 sure as hell ain't talking about Carroll Community College.

[Mongo53]

Originally Posted by DipStick

The numbers in the article seem way high.

$250,000 sure as hell ain't talking about Carroll Community College.

Ok, am I missing the sarcasm?

This is NOT the first time I've seen this, and funny how its seems to coincide with the massive growth of Federal Government in College Education, that Professor salaries have climbed many times higher then in the past.

A good university it going to try to get good professors, arguably at or near the top of their field. Sure I can see some professors making good money, BUT $250k a year, really, how can the universities support that much pay and NOT have tuition sky rocket more than it has already.

Take a look around a college campus sometime, at the dorms and dining facality? My god, even small universities are building full Hotel Suites with private baths for the students that are 8 times the size of a typical dorm room of only a few years ago, its crazy.

Its almost like all these universities and colleges have money to burn.

[Lurk]

Originally Posted by philibusters

As for the claim a lot of professors make $250,000 a year when their salary is added to their benefits that seems high. Its probably more true in the hard sciences, business, econ, law, and medical departments as a lot of those professors have base salaries between $100,000 and $200,000. However when you get to the liberal arts and social sciences a lot of fully tenured professors only make like $80,000 (somebody with 15+ years of experience) and assistant professors make like $40,000 so it would be a shocker if they compensation totaled $250,000.

A large number of faculty in the less prestigious arts and social sciences are probably the 20% doing all the teaching. Faculty in the higher-tier specialties probably have an extremely large 'extra-curricular' income that might include: royalties on publications/research/inventions, speaking engagements, publications and book deals, membership on boards and governance of foundations or corporations. All these may contribute to the higher income, lower 'faculty' workload and higher prestige of these specialties. But the tenure educational industry promotes this difference and leads to the extremely high cost of higher education.

[DipStick]

Originally Posted by Mongo53

Ok, am I missing the sarcasm?

This is NOT the first time I've seen this, and funny how its seems to coincide with the massive growth of Federal Government in College Education, that Professor salaries have climbed many times higher then in the past.

A good university it going to try to get good professors, arguably at or near the top of their field. Sure I can see some professors making good money, BUT $250k a year, really, how can the universities support that much pay and NOT have tuition sky rocket more than it has already.

Take a look around a college campus sometime, at the dorms and dining facality? My god, even small universities are building full Hotel Suites with private baths for the students that are 8 times the size of a typical dorm room of only a few years ago, its crazy.

Its almost like all these universities and colleges have money to burn.

Nice use of hyperbole.

The dorm rooms at Maryland and Virginia Tech are hardly that large.

[Mongo53]

Originally Posted by DipStick

Nice use of hyperbole.

The dorm rooms at Maryland and Virginia Tech are hardly that large.

Oh yes, you've caught me, if that is the case for Maryland and Virginia Tech, then thats the end of the story, I guess there are no other universities in the country.

[Aerogal]

Boy 2 is going to tech school - at least he'll come out with skills.




edit:mustn't drink and type

Originally Posted by Aerogal

edit:mustn't drink and type

you came to my thread drinking and did not bring any to share ?