<p>MomfromKC,
“Any good engineering professor has a consulting gig over the summer and a research grant during the year. That isn’t where the problem is coming from.”</p>
<p>That was the problem at the university I worked at. Engineering professor salaries topped out at around $120K, which was mid-manager salaries at the places they’d consult. Eventually, many of them left. During boom years, it was hard getting ANY qualified engineers to teach because academia was the last place many of them wanted to be. Which is why there are so many foreign STEM TAs and instructors in American universities. Americans would rather go for the big bucks.</p>