A colleague and I were talking the other day about how much we pay our research assistants. It turns out that she pays much more. In fact, sometimes I don’t get around to paying my research assistants at all, but she pays hers a decent amount.
My colleague, who’s an untentured professor, said that was understandable because she makes less money than I do, so she can better relate to the students’ lifestyles. That’s a pretty scary thought–it should really go the other way, right? I get paid more so I should be able to afford to be more generous. But maybe she’s right; if so, it’s a sobering insight.
Or, the fact that you are a well published, well respcted, tenured professor means that students want to be your RA's so that they have something to put on their resumes/CV's, while the untenured less well known professor needs to pay them better in order to attract them to her research as opposed to yours (or some other well known tenured prof) who for prestige purposes the students would rather work for. I know in my school, the more well published and tenured profs have a much easier time finding RA's even when they are not paying than the untenured and less well published profs who are paying.
Oh yeah.
I was once collecting money for a well liked coworker who had suffered a heart attack. I was overwhelmed by how those who were paid the least gave the most while those who were paid abundantly gave nominal amounts. Liked all these people, I certainly didn't think that show where we well off weren't generous but that they just didn't appreciate how tenuous most people's lives are.
My wife tells a another story. Once she managed a charitable small manufacturing operation, the good work of a very wealthy woman. Come Christmas the owner gave everybody a poinsettia. But everybody would have much preferred the $20 bucks.
As a tenured senior professor, your recommendation letters (and your name on a student's resume) are probably worth much more. So you can probably attract better students even when you pay them less.
As a current grad student / RA, I'm not that surprised by this finding. I generally agree with Ben and Alex–that there's a tradeoff between pay and career benefits. I'm not sure though whether this is specifically a product of whose name is on the recommendation/CV, or whether the bigger concern is the nature of the project.
This is particularly true if coauthorship is a possibility, since being an RA (at least in political science) doesn't carry the same weight as publications. Seeing as your grad students appear to get good publications (such as Red State Blue State) out of the deal, it makes sense that they'd ask for less in the way of compensation.
This would be fairly straightforward to test, wouldn't it?
Send out an anonymous survey to professors and current RAs. For extra credit, send the survey to some recent graduates of the professors as well.
Plot RA salary normalized to the cost of living versus professor salary, then plot RA salary versus some measure of the professor's reputation (number of papers published in major publications, average salary of recent graduates, etc).
My guess is with the crowd — taking a lower paying job with a more highly respected advisor is an investment in future earnings, and I'd imagine the payback period is pretty short.
It seems like you limit the pool of potential RAs to only those that can afford to work for little or nothing. Does this population necessarily contain the best and brightest RAs?
Just to be clear, I often pay my RA's, and sometimes pay them well. I just don't put much thought into the matter. I pay them when there's a natural source of money for the project, or if I think about paying them, or if they ask for money, but I don't always get around to paying them if there's not a pressing reason to do so. Other times, I want to pay a student but he or she resists taking the money.
At least some of your RA's (read: me) probably are just happy for the learning opportunity. Someone who does full-time work might need wages enough for housing or basic living expenses, but I don't think there are people who are RA's because it's a monetarily lucrative job. The folks who are looking to do quantitative work for real cash have already fled to consulting.
No offense, but yes, you should definitely pay more, or at least what RAs are worth on your pay scale.
I don't like the general attitude in science that students should just put up with anything because "science isn't about the money", i.e., if you can't put up with being poor then you're don't want it badly enough. I can't pay my rent or feed my family with journal papers. This attitude just pushes people out of academia.
I was going to say that I'm not convinced that there is any relationship between the prestige of the professor and the salaries of his or her research assistants. But now I realize I don't need that information: these stories make the case better than any statisics ever could.
Professors who hire RAs are employers, too. Most universities and by extension professors are pocket Wal-Marts here. I believe the UC system finally let RAs unionize in 1999, at least a half-century late. If you can scare up a couple extra ducats for a student, it can make a real difference. Besides, if you hire and fire, take your responsibilities seriously.
As for the insight, anecdote may not be data, but this pattern I have observed my entire life. By nature I am ungenerous myself, but I try to stay aware of it. We pay our child's caregiver something in the 80th percentile salary range (and pay taxes, vacation and sick days, too, thanks), in part because I know myself and took the trouble to find out what local compensation levels look like for that work.
In my waitressing days, I found that poorer people tended to tip better. I attributed to the fact that they probably had worked in the service sector and knew (1) how much it sucks and (2) how much a good tip matters to the waiter. The best tip I ever got was from a young couple on their anniversary who clearly could not afford the restaurant and agonized over ordering the lobster that they really wanted. And then they left me 30%!