LETTER: Averages don’t tell whole story

To the editor:

    I want to correct the misleading impression that was communicated by the graph on the front page of the Statesman on Friday, Nov. 19. The graph showed the “average professor” earning $89,100, an associate professor earning $69,000, and an assistant professor – i.e., usually in her/his first 6 years at USU – earning $62,000.

    But the truth is that there are full professors who have been teaching at USU for 25 years or more  – winning awards, publishing books, ranking high in student evaluations – who do not yet earn the supposed $62,000 of a new hire.

    So, a basic math lesson: the average of $150,000 and $30,000 equals $90,000  – the salary of the “average professor” at USU, according to the graph. But those two numbers – $150,000 and $30,000 – carry more real information about the actual state of salaries at USU than the $90,000 “average,” which is a meaningless statistic in human terms and bears little relation to the actual salary of any given professor. Some professors are very well paid while some are very poorly paid; for the most part that depends on the field and the college in which you work rather than the quality of your contribution.

    What difference does this make? Unfortunately, citizens seeing these figures might very well think professors are overpaid, especially compared to the salaries of most Utahns. That false “fact” may give them another reason to support their legislators in cutting back the state education budget. And students might think being an “average professor” is a relatively lucrative career. 

    Averages are not false but presented without context, they are misleading. In this case, the false perception is not only unjust but can have negative consequences.

Steve Siporin