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Sunday, February 3, 2013

Higher Ed doesn't mean higher salaries

It's a neat trick when an institution of higher education:
  1. Has the lowest paid faculty in the United States
  2. Doesn't have the lowest tuition, even in just Northeastern Pennsylvania
You can read the story here:

Lackawanna College faculty, lowest paid in the United States, seek contract

This situation is brought to you by the same people who insist on naming a theater after a convict who used our tax money for renovations at a private college.

It does beg the question:  where does the money go?

2 comments:

Karla said...

I am a little confused, it's a 2 year college and it looks like it is being compared to all colleges and universities. I'm pretty sure the rate at LCCC is about $25 per hour for adjunct instructor - and that doesn't mean a 40 hour week.

Board meetings at area colleges are like a local who's who. Only so many families in this region have real money and they make the circuit. At least they keep the money local - regardless of how it is made. They could be shipping it to support non-local economies (I suppose some of them do that too).

Stephen Albert said...

Karla, the article doesn't say so, but my assumption is that the averages listed are an aggregate for all post-secondary higher education institutions, which would include trade schools, 2 and 4 year colleges/universities. I am also assuming that the terminology used, such as "assistant professor", is universally consistent in terms of basic requirements across the entire population. Both sets of assumptions seem reasonable to me.

The "catch 22" here is that LC isn't all that inexpensive when compared to other similar institutions (speaking as the father of three in-college/college educated daughters).

As for the BofD, you are of course correct. That's also a shame, because I often times think that there is a certain amount of "intellectual in-breeding" that occurs because of the same folks serving in similar roles across multiple institutions. It's also why, I suspect, both Marywood and LC both have (for example) facilities named after Bob Mellow.

Thanks for commenting.
- Steve