Wisconsin plays a little trick with salaries. Most named professorships do not call the supplement salary (usually $5k-$20K/yr). They call it “research support” . Optics. There are 100s of these
Walker’s instate popularity has declined to all-time low and the current situation wont last much longer. On a brighter note UW just announced a $3.2 B fundraiser.
With average saleries, best to compare the Associate Professor salaries not Full. Looking at Full Professors, who constitute a smaller group and at some places were often hired in from other universities (so they command more $$ to nab them) post tenure. The true guts of a school-the line workers are at the Associate level in most cases and holding.
This comment reveals an inherent lack of understanding about high speed rail. The point of high speed rail is that it doesn’t make stops in cow country.
States such as WI, Ill, and CA are not in a position to raise salaries much. They have over funded worthless programs, many created by State Legislatures (Title IX kangaroo courts, diversity training and staffing) to the exclusion of raises for Profs or reduction of tuition. Also the rest of the state is in a fiscal crisis, so don’t look for any sympathy for tenured Profs. When your state employee retirement systems are funded at less than 50%, you are in a CRISIS.
Many to most Public universities, especially the big research ones, are still very good values. Grads with initiative and drive will do as well as ANY grad from a ‘name’ school in the long run. And, they should have less of the ‘attitude’ that comes with that Ivy Degree.
Once again, you have to look at the state Universities through the lenses of the state fiscal situation. There is a real chance that vaulted state universities will fall in rankings if the funding suffers with the rest of the state budget.
One more issue… the ‘rich’ are leaving fiscally failing states and taking their tax base with them. Houses valued at over one million dollars near Chicago have seen time on market stats go from 2 weeks to 2 years. Next is California, Wisconsin, and New York.
“This comment reveals an inherent lack of understanding about high speed rail. The point of high speed rail is that it doesn’t make stops in cow country.”
According to the LA TImes, the high speed rail cost is now above $65B, and they have STILL not figured out how to get the trains across the Grapevine, due to unstable rock formations and earthquake concerns. In the end, a trip from Bay Area to Burbank is estimated to take 3-4 hours with stops and slowdowns, and cost $250+. You can go San Jose to Burbank in one hour for $60 on Southwest Air.
Why can’t UC and CSU pay their Profs more? Ask the politicians who bought their offices with funds from construction unions working on the High Speed Rail boondoggle.
Even leaving aside the problematically loaded language, if you’re actually seriously placing the responsibility for these things on state legislatures, I’ll simply say that you might need to read up on things before posting on the subject in the future.
Language aside, as states legislatures have to increase spending on health care, welfare and pensions, they will have to reduce it in other areas. In most cases that’s going to be higher education. It’s a trend that will only get worse.
Wow, imagine the impossibility of building high speed rail thru an earthquake zone. Of course no other countries, like Japan, build successful, 100% fatality-free, efficient, and on-schedule high speed rail in in an earthquake zone.
Speaking of faculty salaries, the CSU faculty union just held a strike vote, and the results are announced tomorrow. The union isn’t happy about top administrators taking home 400K a year while the faculty average is 40K and professors very often lack a living wage, and feels that the offer of 2% raises for everyone doesn’t address this problem at all.
Until the voters boot out the politicians who waste money on boondoggles like this bullet train while cutting back at the universities, nothing will change.
I personally welcome research and investment in infrastructure, which includes initiatives such as high speed trains. Public mass transportation is not a “boondoggle.” It’s merely 20th century realism. Which some people haven’t embraced yet in the 21st century.
I think the word “fly over state” is insulting. (ever heard of the great Jason Aldean ) I think the concern about podunk states having questionable education standards is short-sighted. I guess I could respond with the fact that certain east coast schools appear to be elitist and snobby but once again that would be painting a broad brush on a lot of really nice people and great schools. Public schools are more affordable and are a great way for regular people to attend college. They are not all alike. (just as private schools are not all alike) Maybe we should talk about the demise of schools where professors are different politically and kids are diverse…in where they are from, in how they talk, in how they dress and yes in how they look. Maybe we should devote some time to teaching respect along with literature and politeness along with calculus. Perhaps we should look at CEO’s and successful people and where they went to school. I think it might surprise some people on this site to know they came from small public and private colleges all over this nation.
“Perhaps we should look at CEO’s and successful people and where they went to school. I think it might surprise some people on this site to know they came from small public and private colleges all over this nation.”
@woodlandsmom – it wouldn’t surprise most CC readers. And there’s a thread dedicated to just that.
And no one on this site is critical of public schools. This whole thread is about the importance public universities, and the dismay that these schools, so vital to the economic growth of this country – suffer frequent cutbacks in fiscal state support.
@Katliamom I don’t think building the railroad is in and of itself the problem, either, but I do have serious concerns about the way they are going about it. They’re starting with a Fresno-Bakersfield line and expanding into LA and SF from there, but few people want to travel that corridor, and putting a controversial project in a location where it isn’t likely to start out with much use seems like a good recipe for having the beancounters come in and nix expansion before it happens. Construction isn’t funded past 2019, after all.
When Salt Lake City’s light rail system was set up for the 2002 Olympics, it was decried as a painfully expensive boondoggle that would bankrupt the state in years to come—but instead it proved to be incredibly popular, has had to be expanded, and convinced the area (correctly) that the demand was there to put commuter rail in place.
Seems to be the pattern for pretty much every successful large transit project, really.
I remember being 15 years old and counting the days until I could get my learner’s permit. I now live in an area with excellent mass transit, and the kids in my neighborhood often go off to college without their driver’s license. Some of them are in urban areas where they don’t need a car; others come home and take driver’s ed over Christmas vacation.
Once you’ve lived in an area with excellent mass transit it is a rude awakening to be dependent on a car!
I think the concern about podunk states having questionable education standards is short-sighted. I guess I could respond with the fact that certain east coast schools appear to be elitist and snobby but once again that would be painting a broad brush on a lot of really nice people and great schools. Public schools are more affordable and are a great way for regular people to attend college. They are not all alike. (just as private schools are not all alike) Maybe we should talk about the demise of schools where professors are different politically and kids are diverse…in where they are from, in how they talk, in how they dress and yes in how they look. Maybe we should devote some time to teaching respect along with literature and politeness along with calculus. Perhaps we should look at CEO’s and successful people and where they went to school. I think it might surprise some people on this site to know they came from small public and private colleges all over this nation.