Today’s Staff Editorial
Last night marked the second presidential debate, and lo and behold, the state of the economy inevitably came up. While President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney have enumerated drastically different ways to help the country bounce back from the economic downturn, the one common thread each candidate has in his plan is that cuts are unavoidable. There’s simply no way around them if the country wants to rein in the more than $16 trillion debt — everyone, supposedly, has to do his or her part.
Students at this university, who have seen their tuition go up every year, know that firsthand. But a professor in a Diamondback article Tuesday said universities could — and still can — do more to improve their budgets. They can cut faculty and staff members who aren’t helping universities better prepare students for the real world, and they can stop paying certain professors and researchers six-figure salaries.
Compared to the rest of the country, this state and university are doing pretty well, given the circumstances. Tuition has risen 3 percent for three consecutive years, but that’s nothing compared to double-digit tuition hikes other students have seen nationwide. So yes, there are faculty members who rake in big paychecks — and many of these faculty members could afford to, and should, take a pay cut — but many of these salaries are necessary to retain the top professors.
This university prides itself on its ability to climb through the ranks — which it has done for the last several years — and its success in attracting students from all over the world because of certain faculty members. And that all comes at a cost.
Ideally, professors teach because they truly believe in helping students further their goals, but that’s only true to a certain point. If another university beckons with a significant pay raise, no one could blame a professor for leaving.
Salaries constitute more than 60 percent of the university’s budget, but this seems necessary, to a certain degree, for the university to attract and retain the top researchers and faculty in many fields. Yet there are some serious discrepancies between department employees’ salaries that should be improved. Yes, professors in engineering and business will probably always be paid more than philosophy professors, but the volume of work, research and number of hours spent should be taken into consideration more than the field itself. This has always been a science-heavy university, but it doesn’t mean those in other fields should be put on the back burner.
Additionally, athletic coaches are some of the highest-paid staff at this university (and others), and are paid more than three times as much as some professors. It’s going to take a lot of money to attract the top coaches, but if the university is struggling financially (which it is), or other faculty members aren’t reaping the same benefits, coaches’ high salaries shouldn’t come at the detriment of others.
Dozens of professors at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Virginia — institutions this university strives to be compared to — are paid upwards of $200,000, according to salaries made available through Collegiate Times. There are certainly staff members who seem overpaid at all schools, but spending big bucks on top professors, administrators and other staff members will always be a necessity, no matter what state the economy is in.
