Georgia Reduces Certainty of Tenure for College Professors - How will this affect quality of education and rankings?

[EconPop]

@OhiBro

If there is a single expert out of 8 billion people, society can’t be placing much value on that particular topic.

I think @elf1 was speaking about being on the top level of expertise, not specifically being the #1 expert in a given field.

[RayManta]

Realistically, though, if you are a professor between the ages of, say, 40-55, with a working spouse and kids in the local public middle and high schools, how likely are you to uproot your family because you are upset at the changes to the level of tenure protection? Even if you could go to a “more prestigious” university? Is it worth the process of selling your house, moving, telling your kids they will need to make new friends, your spouse that he or she needs to find a new job? Maybe you’ve got elderly parents in the area who you assist. No different from anyone else in any other line of work moving to a new city. Some will do it, others will decide it isn’t worth the effort.

[1NJParent]

@OhiBro

The biggest concern about college is paying for it. And academia would have you think that we haven’t adequately fed the monster with enough tax money. With the notions of academic freedom and lifetime employment being archaic, the tenure fat must be trimmed to control costs.

The tenure system has been around for well over a century. It’s the other things that we did in the recent decades in higher education, not the tenure system, that are responsible for the cost increase.

[tarator]

And yet, it happens all the time. It seems that you don’t know much of the life of professors.

[OhiBro]

@EconPop

I think @elf1 was speaking about being on the top level of expertise, not specifically being the #1 expert in a given field.

Good point, and I appreciate this. I just don’t buy in to: 1) with such few experts, a field is of great value, and 2) that tenure is required to develop research in valuable fields.

@1NJParent

The tenure system has been around for well over a century. It’s the other things that we did in the recent decades in higher education, not the tenure system, that are responsible for the cost increase.

I know there are many factors that have contributed. But what does tenure cost? If you can replace a $150k tenured professor with a $125k non-tenured professor, that’s full tuition for 2 kids at a typical state U. It’s real money, not to mention the other benefits of getting rid of tenure.

Another point is that getting rid of tenure doesn’t need to be permanent. Abolish it, and if the quality of education goes down, bring it back. The fear from the pro-tenure side leads me to believe that if tenure is abolished, they think that no one will notice, and tenure will never return…which says everything.

[tarator]

@OhiBro

I know there are many factors that have contributed. But what does tenure cost? If you can replace a $150k tenured professor with a $125k non-tenured professor, that’s full tuition for 2 kids at a typical state U. It’s real money, not to mention the other benefits of getting rid of tenure.

So you are a proponent of “race to the bottom”. If you send your kids to community college, they will most likely be taught by adjunct faculty and it will cost less. You don’t want to do that? Why not?

[OhiBro]

@tarator

So you are a proponent of “race to the bottom”. If you send your kids to community college, they will most likely be taught by adjunct faculty and it will cost less. You don’t want to do that? Why not?

Community college can often be a great way to reduce cost, and if it makes sense for my situation, I would do it. But do CC adjunct’s make $125k? I don’t characterize learning from a $125k professor as a race to the bottom.

[tarator]

CC adjuncts make much less than $125K/yr. You may not characterize it like that, but that’s what it is. Maybe you should read a bit more about these issues, they finally started showing up in popular media.

If you want to reduce cost, go for CC. But leave the universities for the people that value quality.

[warblersrule]

@roycroftmom

Senior faculty hold onto their positions often well past any productive years to maximize their incomes and prestige.

Many also hang on because they know they will be replaced not with another tenured faculty position but with a non-tenured lecturer or adjunct. This is how colleges starve departments until they can close them.

@tarator

And yet, it happens all the time. It seems that you don’t know much of the life of professors.

Yep. What’s just one move? It’s not uncommon for early career scholars to move 5 times in as many years as they jump from one postdoc or lecturer position to another.

@OhiBro

If you can replace a $150k tenured professor with a $125k non-tenured professor

LOL. Most non-tenured lecturers and instructors make about $50-60K a year (and sometimes less). Adjuncts are often paid as little as $2000-3000 a course, which is why you see so many adjuncts teaching 6 courses at 3 different schools to make ends meet.

[1NJParent]

@OhiBro

If you can replace a $150k tenured professor with a $125k non-tenured professor, that’s full tuition for 2 kids at a typical state U.

At places like Georgia Tech, these professors are hired primarily for their research capabilities. Their researches contribute more to schools’ bottom line than the tuitions students pay. Additionally, some of professors (at least in STEM or business) would likely be able to make more in industry. They chose academia because of the freedoms/flexibilities as well as job security that tenured positions offer.

[Mwfan1921]

I am not sure that everyone understands on this thread how low the proportion of tenure/tenure track professors have become, this has been in decline for the last 10-20 years.

I think 2018 is the most recent tenure data, see link below:

For 4 year publics only 44% of full or part time faculty are tenured or on tenure track.
4 year private schools are worse with 34% full or part time faculty tenured or on tenure track.

This table also shows the overall and community college numbers:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/tenure-status-of-full-time-and-part-time-faculty-members-fall-2018?cid=reg_wall_signup&bc_nonce=ipcfrynotehn257mxmgzu

[roycroftmom]

It will continue to stay low. It is simply not rational from an economic perspective to grant a lifetime salary and benefits to an employee at age 35 that may last for 50 or 60 years, regardless of changes in that field of study or demand for their services. There is a reason very few industries have lifetime employment guarantees, with federal judges being one of the few exceptions.

[tarator]

@roycroftmom

It is simply not rational from an economic perspective to grant a lifetime salary and benefits to an employee at age 35 that may last for 50 or 60 years, regardless of changes in that field of study or demand for their services.

It is rational if you want quality of scientific research. If you don’t, look forward for of all of it coming from abroad.

[1NJParent]

Again, the tenure system has been around for a long time. Hiring adjuncts has been a much more recent phenomenon. I think it has to do with how most colleges are run these days, by administrative people who are more business oriented.

[roycroftmom]

We both know it isn’t the scientific faculty that are the problem. They usually get grants that cover their costs and often contribute to the university’s resources. There is often great demand for their classes and not enough professors to teach them.

Of course, the ability to hire new faculty in those fields is constrained by the older, existing faculty in less popular fields hanging on forever.

[tarator]

@roycroftmom

We both know it isn’t the scientific faculty that are the problem. They usually get grants that cover their costs and often contribute to the university’s resources. There is often great demand for their classes and not enough professors to teach them.

The fact is that the tenured faculty gets grants and make the scientific research. Who do you think the “scientific faculty” is? So there is great demand of professors, and you want to remove the few perks the job has? That will definitely make it easier to get quality!

[roycroftmom]

There is great demand for professors in a very few fields-some types of engineering, CS, AI. In almost all other fields, supply exceeds demand by a factor of 100 to 1. With very few job openings because of a lack of mandatory retirement and tenure.

[tarator]

So you want to fire English professors and replace them with CS professors? And pay those CS professors low wages (compared to industry) with them understanding that they might be fired in 10 years to hire XYZ professors?

And you think they’ll agree to teach instead of making much more money in industry?

[Mwfan1921]

@roycroftmom

There is great demand for professors in a very few fields-some types of engineering, CS, AI.

This is true, and the lack of candidates is limiting the courses that many schools can offer in these subjects. I don’t have data, but my sense is a not-insignificant proportion of CS and AI faculty don’t have PhDs…so there’s yet another area that the traditional academic pathways are breaking down.

[tarator]

Of course they won’t have PhDs. People with PhDs in these areas can make probably orders of magnitude more money in industry. And if you take tenure out, there will be even less supply in these areas, because there won’t be any reason anybody to take an academic job.