Astronomy PhD recipients generally follow three main outcomes after receiving their degrees: they accept a postdoctoral position, a non-postdoctoral temporary position, or a potentially permanent position. To learn more about these outcomes, AIP annually asked new astronomy PhDs about their immediate post-degree outcomes. For the classes of 2018,…

How expensive is a college degree? Usually, the answer is based on what students pay in tuition and fees compared to what they earn after graduation. Very little is known about the economic cost of running an electrical engineering program compared to, say, a history department, or the resource consequences of steering more students into these…

The private return to postsecondary investment varies widely by field, but the resources required by different fields are not well known. This paper establishes five new facts about college costs using novel department-level data. First, costs vary widely across field, ranging from electrical engineering (109 percent higher costs than English) to…

Academic couples make up a significant portion of the academic labor market. Unlike other dual-career households, academic couples must not only find employment in the same region, but often in the same institution. Previous work has not considered how outcomes may be different when dual career households work for the same employer. In the first…

By using unique survey data, we conduct a detailed study of the gender salary gap within economics departments in Japan. Despite the presence of rigid pay scales emphasizing age and experience, there is a 7% gender salary gap after controlling for rank and detailed personal, job, institutional and human capital characteristics. This gender salary…

Career development is an important issue, and there are aspects of finding the right position that are particular to science faculty. This article offers a checklist of questions to ask in an academic job interview. Some queries are more appropriate for the chairperson and other administrators; others are better asked of faculty or students. With…

Describes a three-tier merit-pay system that rewards excellence, reinforces competence, and yet motivates professional growth among the lowest performers. Also discusses drawbacks. (PD)

Examination of several methods of identifying faculty salary inversion (pay of some junior faculty exceeding that of senior faculty) found no single best method. However, applicability of certain models to different disciplines at different funding levels was demonstrated. (SK)

Examined the extent to which labor-market conditions and the sex-composition of academic disciplines influenced average disciplinary salaries, based on the average, full-time 1988-89 salaries of new assistant professors for 16 academic disciplines. Findings from both cross-sectional and dynamic models indicated that both labor-market conditions…

Examined are the specific differences in the salary reward structures of eight clusters of academic disciplines included in Biglan's three-dimensional model of the academic profession. A total of 1,320 faculty at a large research university responded to the Faculty Activity Analysis questionnaire regarding the time spent in 11 categories of…

The applicability of the principle of comparable pay for comparable worth is discussed for college faculty jobs, not only for alleviation of sex discrimination but also for eliminating bias-related discrepancies between departments or specialties. (MSE)

Three models to describe university salary structure were assessed. Attention was focused on full-time, permanent faculty in ranks of instructor through full professor. Model I postulated that the internal labor market is uninfluenced by the external academic market. The results of model I were compared to the results of a model that adjusted for…

Measures of income and salary inequality used by economists were examined and applied against 1984-1985 faculty salary data. Attention was directed to salary inequality at each academic rank, as well as female-male inequality. The following measures were used: Lorenz Curve-Gini Coefficient, coefficient of variation, Theil's Index, and Atkinson's…

A preliminary report on the economic standing of American academics, based primarily on a national survey of faculty conducted in the spring of 1977, is presented. The economic position of professors is compared to other segments of the population, and income differences within the faculty are also examined. It is shown that since 1970-71, faculty…

Student faculty ratings are used at most institutions of higher learning for three important reasons. First, the ratings provide direct feedback to the faculty, and this enables faculty to adjust their teaching styles. Second, the ratings provide the administration with information intended to assist in guiding and mentoring faculty toward more…