What keeps great professors at Berkeley?

<p>Okay, so I know that Berkeley is public, thus it doesn't have as much money as a lot of the elite privates, but how does it still mantain such world class faculty? I mean, when I visited MIT this past weekend I saw lots of funding, pristine labs, state-of-the-art equipment, the works. However, I know that like my biology professor is brilliant at Cal. he got his bs. from princeton, got and an MD Phd from Johns Hopkins, and hes a great teacher. And there are lots of such professors at Berkeley. I mean we just had a nobel winner, Smoot.</p>

<p>So, are these professors getting paid comparable salaries to elite privates? Are they getting comparable lab funding and equipment? Because i can bet you a lot of these professors could just as easily be at Stanford or MIT. What keeps them? I haven't been in the labs too much so I don't know if they are comparable to the ones I saw at MIT, or whether the funding is as good, or even whether some of the classes at Berkeley are as cool as the most advanced ones I saw in MIT. Are they? And if not, why does the faculty stay? Just curious really. I mean, because if the labs really are that great, then I want in on that action and get some research for myself! thanks</p>

<p>The weather. A lot of profs are leaving Cal for better funding elsewhere.</p>

<p>Alice Waters</p>

<p>Many of the faculty has been at Berkeley for a long time, and back then housing prices wasn't ridiculously priced. I guess it's hard for people to relocate after spending so much time living at one place.</p>

<p>I can't imagine myself moving out of California.</p>