"most computer science students transition directly from graduate school to an industry job, as opposed to a teaching position, because of the stark contrast in employment incentives and opportunities."
Or they leave for an industry job before grad school, because a Ph.D is not a money-making proposition compared with three to five years of experience while making a salary.
But the biggest problem is this: academics are afraid of anyone who hasn't demonstrated commitment to their system by earning a Ph.D, writing a thesis, and accepting terrible wages and living conditions for a number of years as junior or adjunct faculty. So the number of 50 year old software engineers who decide to semi-retire and take up an academic position is effectively zero.
> But the biggest problem is this: academics are afraid of anyone who hasn't demonstrated commitment to their system by earning a Ph.D, writing a thesis, and accepting terrible wages and living conditions for a number of years as junior or adjunct faculty. So the number of 50 year old software engineers who decide to semi-retire and take up an academic position is effectively zero.
A few thoughts:
1. Many schools who are willing to give up on the "traditional" job candidate profile are still have a very hard time hiring. I know this from many, many conversations with department and search committee chairs and lower-ranked places.
2. Hiring non-phds isn't always an option for higher-ranked (and especially mid-ranked) institutions. It'd be great if Google only used the data they collect in ways that enhance their users' experience. But it's unreasonable to expect an ad company to not use their data assets to sell ads. There's something analogous going on with hiring non-phd faculty to teach -- institutions involved in a rankings war should only care about maximizing educational outcomes, but we live in the real world and metrics do matter.
3. Most importantly, maybe these places are right to be skeptical! Engineering isn't teaching, and many of those who can do, cannot teach. I've seen a lot of situations where semi-retired industry folks don't take teaching seriously. The permeated anecdotes from industry are valuable, but not valuable enough to compensate for poorly structured courses or failing to explain tree rotations in an intelligible way. It doesn't help that teaching loads demand a 40 hour week, but teaching salaries only pay for 15-20 hours of even semi-retired engineering time.
I think "terrible" is overstated with respect to wages and living conditions in most cases. Yes, you can generally make a salary several times larger working outside of academia. However, faculty positions still generally pay reasonably well, especially when compared to those living in conditions of poverty.
I actually agree with parent's point here, but for a different reason.
Many of these teaching positions are in the range where you will be dependent on social security / medicare in order to retire. I consider that dependence effectively poverty in this country. Demographics, budget, and political climate all suggest to me that these two safety nets won't be available in 30 years.
When you're working from 18 or 21 onwards and saving, mid 5 figures over your whole life translates into a survivable retirement.
However, if you don't start saving for retirement until after graduate school (late 20s) and at that point start off at mid 5 figures with terrible benefits, little upward pressure on your salary, and lots of student loans, you're basically dependent upon the government for any retirement. Especially if you care to reproduce.
So, some of these teaching jobs really are poverty wages, given the opportunity cost of graduate school. The poverty comes at 65, but it does come.
What these places need to do is pay well and reduce course loads. But many of them cannot afford to do either.
(Oh BTW google's shooting you emails every week or two.)
> However, faculty positions still generally pay reasonably well, especially when compared to those living in conditions of poverty.
Not compared to the income one can make by ditching Academia and entering the workforce. The pay is terrible, full stop. Comparing it to poverty is a pretty bad idea as well.
Clearly academia doesn't want to pay for the talent, so they shouldn't be shocked when they can't get talent.
I'm not sure I understand why you're treating academia as separate from "the workforce."
> Comparing it to poverty is a pretty bad idea as well.
You're right, but I think there's a valuable point of comparison between poverty and jobs outside of academia. And while this is not true in all cases, I think it's fair to say that many academic jobs in CS can provide a comfortable living wage for a small family.
> Clearly academia doesn't want to pay for the talent
In many cases, they can't pay for the talent. At least not to what some companies are prepared to pay for the same people.
Having been in both, the conditions of academic jobs are so different than private sector that you really should consider it a different employment pool. "Workforce" is probably the wrong word. I generally break things down into public sector, academics, and private sector.
I'm not suggesting that be the baseline. But I think it's important to put things in perspective. I am pulling these numbers out of thin air, but suppose you're making $100K/yr as a faculty member vs $300K/yr in in industry. Although I made those numbers up, I don't think they're unreasonable. And yes, you generally take a huge potential pay cut to be an academic, but CS faculty are also generally paid good living wages.
As faculty you can still consult. Since you are faculty companies like you especially at a prestigious school. Professors make very good money if they play their cards right.
$100K would be a fully tenured professor at a good school, and some time under their belt. Even then, $100K is on the high end of the scale. There are exceptions that go significantly higher even without tenure, but the average with tenure is closer to $80K.
Assistant CS Professors are typically making $100k+ at good public schools. Plug "Assistant Professor Computer Science Austin" into a search engine for public employee salaries [1]. 110K seems to be the minimum for a non-tenured CS professor.
Here's some reference data. At U of Michigan, these professorial wages are typical in CS (and are publicly listed):
lecturer: $80K
assistant: $110K
associate: $110-130K
full: $150-190K
BTW, I see that the UofM CS dept. employs a lot more (3X?) lecturers in CS now than they did 15 years ago -- another sign of high demand/low supply for PhDs in academe.
Or they leave for an industry job before grad school, because a Ph.D is not a money-making proposition compared with three to five years of experience while making a salary.
But the biggest problem is this: academics are afraid of anyone who hasn't demonstrated commitment to their system by earning a Ph.D, writing a thesis, and accepting terrible wages and living conditions for a number of years as junior or adjunct faculty. So the number of 50 year old software engineers who decide to semi-retire and take up an academic position is effectively zero.