It Takes 20 Years to Make a Professor, but Student Tastes Change Much Faster
When a field gets hot, schools must bid for scarce teachers while still paying tenured faculty in subjects students no longer want.
Wendover Productions · Why College is so ExpensiveIt takes about 20 years to train a professor, through years of schooling and specialization in a field.
Student interests change with culture, so student demand shifts from one field to another over the years. By the time new professors complete that education and specialize, student enthusiasm for that field has faded.
When student demand centers on a particular major, too few qualified teachers are available. Colleges must outbid one another to hire them, with salary offers as the deciding factor. Schools that can afford it bring in more professors, which attracts more students and more tuition revenue to support the higher pay.
At the same time, colleges continue to employ professors from previously popular fields. Longtime professors can receive tenure, a job guarantee until retirement meant to promote academic freedom. Because those professors cannot be dismissed, schools are left with extra faculty in fields that draw fewer students while they keep bidding for scarce faculty in fields that draw more.