> Without guys like this, we don't have a next generation of physicists (most of whom will move into the private sector).
There are plenty of people who would be totally happy to step into this professor's shoes at his current rate of pay just to have a position in academia. We have too many PhDs—there are more people who want a position in academia than academia can support.
We're not faced with the prospect of not being able to train a next generation of physicists, but there's a real possibility that the next generation doesn't view academia as the ideal place to be—the physics equivalent of Broadway. If that happens, fewer people will put up with low-valued positions and a dangled tenure carrot, and the college job market will adapt.
In the meantime we're not going to solve the problem of academic jobs being overvalued by the workforce by artificially inflating pay for the lucky few who landed an academic job at all.
There are plenty of people who would be totally happy to step into this professor's shoes at his current rate of pay just to have a position in academia. We have too many PhDs—there are more people who want a position in academia than academia can support.
We're not faced with the prospect of not being able to train a next generation of physicists, but there's a real possibility that the next generation doesn't view academia as the ideal place to be—the physics equivalent of Broadway. If that happens, fewer people will put up with low-valued positions and a dangled tenure carrot, and the college job market will adapt.
In the meantime we're not going to solve the problem of academic jobs being overvalued by the workforce by artificially inflating pay for the lucky few who landed an academic job at all.