Value and Salary

There has been quite the reaction to Paul Krugman’s appointment to the City University of New York! The reactions range from those who say he deserves his $225,000 salary, those who say it is a joke and an insult, and those who shrug their shoulders. As the article progresses we will see which camp I am in.

City University of New York (CUNY) obviously wants Paul Krugman and needed to pay a pretty price to lure him away from Princeton; academic superstars cost money. It is up to the President and the Board of Directors of CUNY to pay him a salary that is allowed within their budgetary constraints of a state institution. Once the President and Board of Directors agree on a salary the decision is on them along with all the positive and negative press (I am sure legal has some part in this but we never know about those conversations).

In an article at Inside Higher Ed. that is not positive or negative about Krugman’s appointment, one interesting comment was “Indeed, the amount offered to Krugman was quite generous as it exceeds that of any other distinguished professor at the Graduate Center by at least $5,000, and in many cases upwards of $75,000.”

So he will be getting paid between 2% to 33% more than other distinguished professors...seems logical. Not everyone gets paid the same amount especially when you are talking about academic superstars; are there other distinguished professors who are as ‘distinguished’ as Paul Krungman? Probably. When I went through the list of Distinguished Professors I only recognized a small handful; Richard Alba, Talal Asad, and John Corigliano who is a huge superstar in the music world.

Having the title Distinguished Professor or even being an academic superstar does not always equal a big fat paycheck. As with many things in life how much you get paid depends on many factors that are often out of your control; how the overall economy is performing, budgetary constraints, staffing, how big of an academic superstar are you, content, et cetera. Some people get paid more because of longevity, some get paid more because of merit, and some get paid more because of luck. But if you are a professor getting paid between $150k to $220k a year that is not a bad gig and if you need more money, write a book that will sell!

There is also the discussion about Paul Krugman's research about income inequality. I have not exhaustively read his writings but from what I understand Paul Krugman writes about the super-rich, not just the kinda rich on the low-end of rich. Krugman is not worth several bi$$ion or a few hundreds of  mi$$ions, he is worth $2.5 million which is a huge accomplishment for an academic and writer; kudos to him! It is not like he is David Beckham who after a long career at Manchester United, Real Madrid, and Los Angeles, along with a hefty modeling career, is worth $300 million or J.K. Rowling who is worth a cool $1 billion.

For me, hiring Paul Krugman, along with all of the wonderful talent City University of New York already has, shows the academic world that CUNY is a force to recon with. With that said, because CUNY includes City College, Hunter College, Baruch College, Lehman College, CUNY Graduate Center, and many other colleges rankings get confusing. If you include the seven community colleges in the CUNY portfolio you have a huge system that educates hundreds of thousands of students, provides real value to the city and state of New York but does not offer exclusivity. This exclusivity unfortunately helps rankings and the perception of quality and if you look at rankings (which do not matter but many people pay attention to them) the colleges of CUNY all fall somewhere in the middle; not high and not low.

Da Capo. For me, I don’t care that Paul Krugman is going to get paid $225k a year at CUNY; the President and Board of Directors approved the salary and he is a huge win for the Graduate Center. What is important for me is that all of the colleges of CUNY continue to provide excellent education to hundreds of thousands of students in New York at a reasonable price and if they have some academic superstars as part of their very large New York portfolio, good for them!