'College professor do nothing, except talk about something...make a joke..heheehe...put scantrons in the machine.' Ever heard of the phrase 'publish or perish', college professors has to constantly publish research in the top end journals to justify their salaries and bring in stipend to the department. Ofcourse after getting the permanent status in the university, they can choose to not do any research and not publish but first 10 years are really tough research and publishing requirement. After becoming permanent, college professor salaries go up by $2K per year even if they do not publish any research at all. That is good times, just teach two classes a day and rest of the time, may be take up some trading or just watch cable tv.
'I've made very good money elsewhere living out a dream and I can tell you that money is definately not everything. There's living and then there's living with life...' could not have said it better! good words!
Being a professor is not always a easy task, depending on who your teaching, a bunch of undergrads and all you do is bs, bs and more bs. But if you leadering a bunch of Ph.D. students you have to worry about having enough funding for research, edit stupid thesis, red tape etc.
What's this have to do with pay scale? Nothing! I didn't say a "worker" would achieve self actualization through their chosen profession. Anyone who attempts that is a fool. My point was "workers" actually produce, while college professors are little more than babysitters tending the adolescent minded youth. The primary purpose of college is to have a place to send kids and have them mature. Secondly, it's all part of the game which has us all believing these bullshit white collar "professionals" are actually worth the money they're making. If one actually wants to learn something, it takes little more than a library card and some motivation.
Depends, a PhD in what? If it's something like mathematics or electrical engineering, then not "anyone" can get a PhD. I doubt 95% of the population could get a PhD in math if someone held a gun to their heads or offered them $5M. If you ever took a graduate class in math you'd know what I mean. On the other hand, most people could and would be an autoworker if someone offered $5M.