According to figures released this week by Statistics Canada, full-time teaching staff including deans at Mount Allison are among the highest paid at universities in Atlantic Canada with an average (median) salary of $127,075.
Of the 12 Atlantic universities included in the StatsCan survey, Mount Allison ranks fourth. Median teaching salaries are higher at the University of New Brunswick ($133,150), Dalhousie University ($130,350) and the University of Prince Edward Island ($127,575).
The average or median salaries at two other New Brunswick universities rank well below those at Mt. A. Full-time teaching staff and deans at Saint Thomas University earn an average (median) of $119,400 while the median salary at the Université de Moncton is $111,175.
Median figures are the middle point in salary ranges meaning that half of the full-time university teachers and deans are paid more and half earn less.
At Mount Allison, for example, full-time teaching salaries in 2016/17 ranged from $71,682 for an assistant professor at the lowest pay level to $151,679 for a full professor at the highest one.
Female professors earn less
The StatsCan figures, also for 2016/17, show that full-time, female teaching staff at 11 of the 12 universities surveyed in Atlantic Canada earn less on average than their male counterparts.
At Mount Allison, 75 male teaching staff earned a median income of $133,225, while their 60 female counterparts were paid an average (median) salary of $118,525.
The figures are roughly comparable at other New Brunswick universities: University of New Brunswick paid its 330 full-time, male teaching staff a median income of $138,900 while their 228 female counterparts earned a median income of $121,775.
Université de Moncton paid its 168 full-time, male teaching staff a median income of $117,850, while its 105 female teachers received an average (median) of $107,175 and, at Saint Thomas University, 57 men were paid an average (median) of $124,400 while 45 female teachers earned a median income of $115,300.
Only at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax where 81 full-time female teachers outnumbered their 45 male counterparts were the two groups paid an equal median income of $116,025.
To view the Statistics Canada table click on number and salaries of full-time teaching staff at Canadian universities and then choose Add/Remove data to select specific results.
The College Bubble & Mount Allison University (MTA).
These figures on professors salaries at MTA will not matter in the near future anyway because of about 80% Profs. positions in the liberal arts will not exist in the next 10 years. As for MTA, it will either not be there at all or simply be amalgamated with another school like the Univesity of New Brunswick.
In the United States MTA would be a college. In the US to be a university one has to bestow a Ph.D.’s. In Canada, this is not the case.
“The higher education bubble(sometimes termed the ‘College Bubble’) in the United States is a claim that excessive investment in higher education could have negative repercussions in the broader economy. According to the claim – generally associated with fiscal conservatives[1] – while college tuition payments are rising, the supply of college graduates in many fields of study is exceeding the demand for their skills, which aggravates graduate unemployment and underemployment, which in turn increases the burden of student loan defaults on financial institutions and taxpayers”
Wikiwand
In Canda, this situation is actually worst because we give out more liberal arts degrees than the US.
Too many degrees are being pumped out in the wrong areas. Who is at fault for this mess the university establishment in Canada. Will they fix these problems no because they are in denial. You just wait the good old days are coming back. The good old days are not coming back.
The Warlus .The Uses and Abuses of University Canada’s post-secondary education system is failing our students, and our economy. BY Ken Coates and Bill Morrison.
“New campuses opened in places as diverse as Sydney, Nova Scotia; Prince George, BC; and Thompson, Manitoba. The country’s participation rate (the percentage of the population between the ages of twenty and twenty-four), which had been 2.8 percent in 1930, multiplied nearly nine times; by 2009, it had reached 25 percent.”
“The Hidden Crisis in the Canadian University System” and co-author of Ivory Tower Blues , the 1990s yielded some 1.2 million graduates, but only 600,000 new jobs that required undergraduate credentials. In other words, the system produced many more bachelor’s degree holders than the job market warranted”
Problems with Disruptive Innovation
First of all, universities no longer have proprietary ownership of knowledge. The value of liberal arts degree all but lost all of its value.
Disruptive Innovation: “is an innovation that creates a new market and value network and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network, displacing established market leading firms, products, and alliances.” Wikipedia
Brick and mortar universities are simply too expensive vs. online education. This also beats the crap out having to move somewhere be a cramped classroom.
A liberal arts education is about getting an excellent core education it is not a damn buffet.
Is the internet now the new liberal arts degree as my friend Mike pointed out? The answer is YES ! Why? Because the internet is just a hodge-podge of information served up buffet style with no core knowledge just like how modern day liberal arts degree work e.g. No Foundation Year etc…
The internet/massive open online course (MOOC’s) are just a buffet of information. Well so is a liberals art degree at this point as well. Except for an internet connection and MOOC’s lot cheaper than the cost of a liberal arts degree.
To be fair MOOC’s with the help with places like Google and best of the best universities in the World like Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are starting to get good really really good in their consistency and great price points also open 24/7. So Canadian History #101 brought to by Google University which is basically already here will be far more valued. Let’s face it if one gets a History degree from MTA and from the University of Saskatchewan it is all over the map. Universities for the more part have totally gotten rid of core curriculum standards e.g. core readings altogether. BIG MISTAKE. But Google GETS IT! e.g. Google and Coursera may upend the traditional college degree – Microdegrees.
At MTA in the liberal arts, they do not teach core ‘Knowledge’ what they do teach instead is ‘Populism’ & useless ‘Microaggressions’.
Three Reasons Why College Bubble Will Burst. Forbes By: John Wasik e.g. “College pricing will probably undergo what happened to dot-com stocks in 2000. Those institutions with over-hyped reputations and exorbitant prices will be challenged by the market to justify their tuition, which may not hold up at present rates. Colleges that are nimble and embrace high-value, online/offsite lifelong learning will survive.”
“For many of today’s college students and recent graduates, obtaining a degree means taking on mortgage-like levels of debt without having the house (or much of a job!) to show for it”
Mcleans By: Josh Dehaas Link – Canadian profs: the world’s highest paid “The researchers found that full-time Canadian professors make the equivalent of $68,796 (USD) at the beginning of their careers, $86,352 at mid-career and $113,820 at the end of their careers.
By comparison, professors in the United Kingdom, seventh on the list, make $20,346 less than Canadian professors at the beginning of their careers and $25,524 less than their Canadian counterparts near the end of their careers.”
We can’t as a society set these young people up for failure. Starting young people off with a huge debt and no prospect of getting a good job/career with useless degrees.
Universities can’t do anything about this. False universities don’t get to live in a bubble anymore.
This arrogance of superiority and assumptions of institutions like MTA days are numbered.
Some places actually do a great job and really do care about their student’s future.
Career Service now must be the most important aspect of any university.
For example the University of Regina.
“UR Guarantee | UR Guarantee, University of Regina
The UR Guarantee Program will support you through every step of your university experience to successful employment. UR Guarantee students have an advisor to that can help with ALL aspects of University life. The program assists you in your transition to university undergraduate studies, by participating in relevant academic workshops, advising on other student engagement opportunities on-campus and assisting you with career development activities.”
“According to the province, 98% of University of Regina graduates find employment and the university’s 704 co-op education placements last year represents a 24% increase in five years.
So why the need for a guarantee?
“Our studies show the reasons student leave [without graduating]is not for academic or financial reasons but because of a lack of connection and engagement [with the university]” says Regina president Vianne Timmons. She wants to boost the current proportion of students who return after first year. The promise of a successful career is the “hook” for the guarantee, says Timmons, but its real purpose to connect students to life on campus, in and outside the classroom.”
My advice if you are going to MTA especially if are taking a liberal arts degree – Leave Now !!!
It used to get a degree get a good job/career. This is no longer the case. I also can also assure you that Tenured Profs & Administrators at MTA don’t care about you having to pay off your student loan debts etc…
If your university does not make Career Services, Internships as part of their core budget as MTA does and is not part of their main mission statement as is the case with MTA. Find a university that does!
Universities indicated it is not their job to find students jobs. It is now because it is the entire university establishment in Canada that caused the problem of over saturating the market which was just flat out greed on their part. Now they must fix the problem they caused. Or will be forced to start closing a lot more universities in Canada. So MTA it is time to get off your Lazy Ass and stop making Excuses!
If you want to make comments on what I have said I would highly suggest that you read my full article on my Case Study. Why Mount Allison University will be a victim of the”College/University Bubble” By Demian Hammock, Diploma of Advanced Studies Human Resources Management. This article has gotten over 1000 hits.
Link to Article LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-mount-allison-university-wont-survive-see-another-demian-hammock?trk=mp-reader-card
Thank you Bruce (or Mr. Wark) for this article. Is there a reason why you are comparing median salaries (men) to average salaries (women)? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to compare medians to medians OR averages to averages. As well, some women may have lower salaries. This would drive the average down, compared to the median. Or vice versa for women or men too. It may also be clearer to show the salaries according to the professor ranks (seniority) too. Thanks also to you Demian for your comment and link to your enriching insights. Food for thought.
Very interesting and excellent good points, Rima.
“It may also be clearer to show the salaries according to the professor ranks (seniority) too. ” Very true.
Average VS Median I know a lot more complicated than this so the first to admit I am not Subject Matter Expert (SME) in this area.
Right now doing some research to figure out how many Canadians workers make a salary wage range minimum wage to $15.00 dollars an hour which is a working wage. I know it differs minimum wage from Province to Province so that complicates thing too.
I manage to find one report that sort of came close.
Average &Median Definition
The average is the arithmetic mean of a set of numbers.
The median is a numeric value that separates the higher half of a set from the lower half. etc…https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/228989407-Average-vs-Median-
The more I repeat these meanings the better I will understand it ! LOL because it is so true at least for me!
Found a lot whole of Averages for what the average Canadian makes a year but finding a Median for folks between who make a salary between minimum wage and a working wage will a bit like finding a needle in a haystack.
Though this article like all articles and Bruce would know a lot more about this than me as he is a professional writer.
Hard to gauge in an article how detail and long an article should go before losing a large part of your audience.
Something tells me to give it a couple of years it will be 14o tweeter characters. So teacher how do I spell big? Is it b-i-g? No little Jonnhy the correct way and to pronounce big is it always has to be capitalized and it is spelled B-I-G-G-L-Y!!! and don’t forget the three explanation points at the end. Now boys and girls time to bow our heads and give our thanks to our Great Leader Pres/Messiah Donald Trump. I would say LOL but at the US is actually getting close to this point.
Thanks for your comment Rima. In all cases, I’m comparing median salaries to median salaries. The median is one type of average. So, when I use the word average, I’m using it as a median average. The mean is an average obtained by adding all salaries in a group and dividing by the number of members in that group. (We commonly use the word “average” to signify the mean, but it is just as accurate to use the word “median” for average or vice versa.) To clarify, I’ll re-edit my piece to add the word median in brackets wherever I use average.
I decided to use the median as my average to avoid the distorting effects of a few large salaries in the groups of full-time teaching staff and deans. To use a simple example, say that there are five people in a group with salaries like this: (1) $600,000 (2) $150,000 (3) $125,500 (4) $125,000 (5) $110,000. Using the mean as an average (adding up all salaries and dividing by five) gives an “average” salary of $222,100 — but as you can see, four members of the group do not earn anywhere near that figure. In this case, the middle or median number $125,500 more accurately represents the average salary with an equal number of members above and below that figure.
http://www.mun.ca/educ/ed4361/virtual_academy/campus_a/losinskim/mean%2Cmedian%2Cmode.html
Has a good explanation of the difference.
Average is the same as mean, not as median.
Which one is being used?
Marg, I make it very clear in my piece that I’m using the median figure as my average. Also see my explanation in my response to Rima’s comment explaining why I’m using the median figure. The word average can refer to “mean” and “median” alike. They are different types of averages. As I pointed out in my earlier comment, the mean can sometimes be very misleading as an average. Darrell Huff’s classic “How To Lie With Statistics” explains how averages can be manipulated to mislead people.
Yeah, that makes sense to me. In your later comments Bruce “Darrell Huff’s classic “How To Lie With Statistics” I have to give that a read sounds very interesting.
Demian, Huff’s book is available in the Mount Allison University library.
Thanks, Bruce I just find it on the internet as I always do. Hell, I even order it online/Amazon.
University text books industry is one of the biggest scams in history.
The New York Times “The textbook market is like the pharmaceutical market: the people who have the most influence over what is purchased (doctors and professors) don’t have to pay for their choices. Students do.
The more students spend on textbooks, the more universities earn from their bookstore contracts.
Further, several studies indicate that most professors don’t even know the cost of the textbooks they recommend, or that this is a minor factor in their choices. This makes the demand for textbooks “price inelastic” — student buyers are insensitive to price increases.
Add to this the complicity of universities in the problem. Typically, the more students spend on textbooks, the more universities earn from their bookstore contracts. Little wonder most universities don’t like on-line textbook suppliers or rental textbook systems.”
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/7/25/the-real-cost-of-college-textbooks/how-colleges-profit-from-high-textbook-prices?mcubz=3