Professors at public universities worry that a combination of economic anxiety, anti-union sentiment and frustration over rising college costs will make them and their institutions targets for populist anger.
"Much of the prevailing national dialogue in recent months has cast public employees as overpaid elites. Republican governors from Chris Christie of New Jersey to Mitch Daniels of Indiana have fixed blame for their states' budget woes on purportedly handsomely paid public employees and their unions. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota (whose term just ended) described unionized public employees as overpaid "exploiters" who engineered a "silent coup" that has allowed them to feast on state-supported salary and benefits packages, all while enjoying job security far surpassing what exists in the private sector. In fact, public sector employees are likely to be underpaid, argued Jeffrey Keefe, associate professor at Rutgers University's School of Management and Labor Relations, in his paper, "Debunking the Myth of the Overcompensated Public Employee." The pay disparity is particularly large among those who hold a Ph.D. When controlling for levels of education, years of experience, size of organization and other factors, public sector employees with doctorates earn over $31,000 less in total annual wages and benefits as compared to their private sector counterparts (the gap for those with professional degrees was even larger)."
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