Opinions on this?

[Izulde]

PHD Comics: Academic Salaries (http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1086)

I just found it quite interesting and while I can see the rationale behind the disparity, I was just wondering what FOFC thought.

BTW, PHD Comics is hilarious for anyone currently in or who has ever been in grad school. :D

[Swaggs]

I have all the respect in the world for them, but I think academics are, for the most part, more than fairly compensated for their work. Particularly when you consider the quality of life that they enjoy.

Also, the comic is cute and its point that head coaches make a ridiculous amount of money has legs, but it is cherry picking to only show the salaries of Division 1 head coaches (which is what I assume they are doing with the figure shown) rather than all head coaches and/or assistant coaches. Head coaches of D1 programs are the cream of the crop and there are only about 120 of those jobs available, while there are more than 3,000 colleges and universities in the United States (each with their own staffs). I'm sure that, if we compared the salaries of Ivy League coaches vs Ivy League academic staffs or NAIA coaches vs Big 10 academic staffs, the graph would be much less dramatic.

[sachmo71]

I guess competition for good academic administrators isn't as tight as competition for good football coaches.

[digamma]

Sometimes you have to build the stadium addition to fund the library renovation.

[Pumpy Tudors]

I wonder how much the head football coach makes at my wife's school. I'd love to know if he makes more or less than she does. Being a private school in D-II, though, there's probably no reason for that number to get out.

[DeToxRox]

This isn't football, but Dane Fife, Men's basketball coach at IUPUI makes 95 grand a year.

For all the hours those guys put in, that seems like robbery to me.