<p>"My son, who is entering college this fall--as I'm preparing to sign big checks--told me that a classmate of his is opting to become a police officer rather than going the four-year college route. This reminded me of an exercise I conducted while in the lower depths of graduate school that compared the lifetime earnings of a college professor and a police officer--the police officer won."</p>
<p>Above is the first paragraph of the latest post at my Psychology Today blog. Something to think about while you're sending in your enrollment deposits. (Disclosure: I'm a somewhat active poster at College Confidential, but I didn't want to blow my screen name, so I'm posting this under my real name.)</p>
<p>Interesting but you took the very best case scenario on the cop front, and only average case scenario on an extremely diverse professor front. Try using at least averages for both and I might be more convinced.</p>
<p>For the police officer, I used figures from the NYC recruting site. And I used the figures for a regular officer. If I had used the figures for a detective, sergeant, lieutenant, etc., the numbers would be much higher. NYC pays a decent wage compared to a small town in a rural area, but it pays significantly less than surrounding areas, such as either Nassau or Suffolk County on Long Island, which has created a recruitment problem for the city.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>NYC incomes for he police, national averages for the professors…hmmm, could we look at that a little closer?</p></li>
<li><p>Defined benefits for the cops? 35 years from now? I doubt it. See:</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Surely the 8 yr. number is incorrect. Many graduate departments draw the line at 6 yrs; after that they require a formal request for extension. In my experience, those who draw things out this long are doing the doctoral program part time, at best, while they work as adjuncts–that is, they are making some money.</p>
<p>I also find it hard to believe the 100K debt figure. Many, many fields require no debt for the PhD degree unless the graduate student doesn’t want to scrape by on the research/teaching stipend. Engineering, natural sciences, many social sciences such as economics generally provide waivers of tuition and fees and a living stipend (albeit a modest living). In my experience, the vast majority of those working toward PhDs or EdDs in education are doing so while working as teachers or principals. While they are not included in the fully-funded group, they are also not delaying compensation.</p>
<p>I don’t know the actual numbers, so perhaps you are correct that on average it takes an additional ten years after tenure to be named a full prof, but that is not the case in my experience. One can start requesting after 3 years, and if the research record is any good, will probably be granted the promotion within 5 years.</p>
<p>Having made those objections, I will agree with you that one should not pursue a doctorate with the expectation that Big $$$ is in your future. It really does not work out for a lot of people, and it is hard to know ahead of time if you are one of them. Furthermore, a lot of those who do earn well as professors could have done just as well, monetarily, working in the same field, but not in a college teaching role. The real “professor types” value the chance to set their own research agenda, to mentor others, to choose some of their working group and to be part of training and educating young people; as long as the compensation is good enough, the trade-off is worth it.</p>
<p>Police hours really stink. They have to work on holidays. They deal on a daily basis with the seamy side of life. I don’t think too many people who like the idea of being a prof. would trade, even if police did come out ahead over the long run, monetarily.</p>
<p>I thought this was totally something else. There was a story tonight on the news in Philadelphia about a psychologist/researcher who claims he was severely beaten by a police officer when he went to interview substance abusers as part of a national study.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong: I agree with your take home message. I just have an issue with the data. </p>
<p>I would contend that NYPD is not average. How about cops in less expensive cities? Cops in small towns? Officers without a defined benefit pension plan? Moreover, why are you suggesting that those with a defined benefit plan do not contribute to it? </p>
<p>And as Midmo says, the other stats don’t seem to make sense- or they make sense so broadly, that they do not apply to so many. In my field(s), I straddle three, everyone is fully funded for grad school (tuition and living stipend), so there would be nothing like this debt. Moreover, the norm in the fields I know well is 5 years to graduation, not 8.</p>
<p>in biomedical related fields, the average is a bit more than 6 years to PhD, but without graduate student debt (you may have undergrad debt).</p>
<p>Then you generally have 3-8 years of post-doctoral positions, followed by an average of 6 years as an assist prof before obtaining tenure. At the more elite universities, tenure is granted only after 5 or more years at the associate prof level (so 11 years into being a faculty member). </p>
<p>That said, I concur that police face real risk and stress on a daily basis. Bullets are much more stressful than grants. Police are underpaid no matter how high their pay is!</p>
<p>If you go to the end of the article, the author says he is making a (very roundabout) pitch for a liberal arts education. He says ‘don’t go to college to learn a trade.’</p>