Mountain_Bill5743 t1_j6610ha wrote on January 27, 2023 at 11:26 PM

Reply to comment by kbd77 in Schools, neighborhoods by Sure_Guest_4535

How competitive are Brown's salaries when compared to other private and R1s?
I assumed the prestige + competitiveness in academia/higher ed is a lot of the draw and that maybe the salaries weren't amazing for the CoL difference unless candidates are in hard to staff fields or famous academics. I'd be interested to know from someone with more insight. Like even high 5 figures here isn't comfortable with a family anymore.

Also, the private school tuition is next level. It's like sending your kid college for 13 consecutive years. I think 35-55k a year is unheard of for Texas, but it's the going rate here, OP. The only "affordable" private high school is Catholic.

kbd77 t1_j66is15 wrote on January 28, 2023 at 1:37 AM

Brown’s salary info is public so you can look it up pretty easily. Put it this way: I make a lot more in the private sector than I would if I had a position with more seniority at Brown. The non-profit world doesn’t pay that well.

RandomChurn t1_j680cyw wrote on January 28, 2023 at 11:23 AM

>make a lot more in the private sector

Worked at Brown for 17 years, having come from the private sector. This was too true: wages and annual raises were crazy low at Brown by comparison. And while people think Brown offers great benefits, this stopped being true by the 90s!

That said, likely OP is an upper-level administrator. So, especially if they are comparing a state university in TX to an Ivy, salary should be adequate to live on the East Side or Barrington.

kbd77 t1_j685tvv wrote on January 28, 2023 at 12:32 PM

Yep, my mom worked at Brown for 35 years before Ruth Simmons unceremoniously laid her off because she made more than her more junior colleagues. We always used her health insurance plan because it was much better than my dad’s. But she never even cracked six figures despite being a very senior member of her department. It’s kind of crazy.