Despite the current condition of the United States’ economy, it still seems unreasonable that a significant number of Ph.D. holders are unable to make ends meet with their paychecks alone.
But in fact, more than 30,000 people with doctorate degrees and almost 300,000 people with master’s degrees relied on some sort of government aid in 2010, approximately three times the number of recipients in 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics.
Many of these advanced degree-holders are in academia, but they cannot support themselves on the salaries they receive from their college or university. The financial troubles of these faculty members are not widely recognized, but the implications of these statistics are serious. Universities need to recognize that the compensation they provide some instructors is inadequate and make appropriate changes to keep them above the poverty line.
Many of these graduates are struggling to make a living wage in the academic field while educating our students and presumably instilling in them a desire to attain a degree as well. These instructors, often working part-time and in adjunct positions, should be an example to their students of what can be achieved by continuing their studies. Instead, after paying back student loans, they can barely make a living wage.
With so many graduates searching for scarce jobs in academia, institutions can easily pay these highly educated faculty low wages for part-time work. Though these positions do offer the opportunity for career advancement, tenured professorship positions are few and far between.
Faculty in nontenured positions should be entitled to a livable wage, yet their low pay is not the extent of the problem. According to a report from the Coalition on the Academic Workforce, assistant professors, teaching assistants and other part-time faculty now make up approximately 75 percent of all teaching positions at U.S. colleges and universities in 2007 and earn significantly less than tenured professors.
While in the best-case scenario these institutions would employ more of these lecturers as full-time professors, institutions facing financial strain do not have extra funds to support dozens of new professorial salaries. Even so, ensuring the people they employ do not have to live off government assistance should be a top priority.
Universities should make an effort to bridge the gap between their highest-paid professors ““ which at UCLA exceed salaries of $200,000 ““ and their lesser-paid faculty members.
But for this to happen, struggling faculty members need to make their institutions recognize their situation. Their financial hardship may go unnoticed because there might be an element of shame associated with relying on government aid despite their advanced degree and admirable profession.
Though colleges do not always have to look into their employees’ financial situations, if confronted with the reality that many of the people educating their students are relying on social welfare, it will be hard to ignore while maintaining a good public image.
Students attend college because they understand the importance of a degree, and that is an ideal institutions of higher education seek to uphold. Colleges and universities need to reaffirm that importance not just to their students, but to their advanced degree-holding faculty by paying them a fair salary.
Email Grano at kgrano@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to opinion@media.ucla.edu or tweet us @DBOpinion.