Salary survey

Hey, you can have some ramen noodles, too.

 

Is the average starting salary really around 25k? For some reason, I seriously doubt that.

 

Generic cereal makes for a damn fine dinner.

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grifter, I would be stunned if the average starting salary is really around $25K.

 

Frosty Flakes tastes the same as Frosted Flakes when mixed with powdered milk. :-X

 

Hmmmm. 16 years (11 FT). 7 years as an SE. Between 50-60K.

RB

 

Of course, I've often wondered why someone who has the smarts and money to get into Northwestern would go there just to make journalists' money.

But that's a whole 'nuther discussion.

 

Believe it or not, there are well paying jobs in the profession. It's just not a well-paying profession.
I've seen dozens of former colleagues use their time in the profession to launch other careers. Some intimately and peripherally related to journalism. Others not.
Sometimes you have to take off the reading glasses to see the big picture.

 

I tried taking the reading glasses off, and I can't see the difference between $60,000 and $6,000.

 

Dean Singleton says: "You're hired!"

 

Because they love journalism and also want a top-notch education?

Why should we accept a lesser grade of education as the standard course of action? Do we really want to lower the standards of our profession in that manner?

 

I know you're dedicated to the craft and all, PW, but that last graf of yours presumes a heckuva lot. "Lesser grade" of education? Just because you don't go to a prestige school? I'll take a kid who works his ass off at State U. over someone who navigates the friendly courses and teachers at a so-called big name school.

As for your last sentence, I can only assume that you forgot the blue font. Lower the standards of our profession? Doesn't matter very much where you went to college if the suits running the organizations already are stomping on the standards like grapes in a big wooden vat. And we've been told plenty of times that they're the "C" students of the world.

 

I guess I should have included "theoretically."

I don't like it, either, but when you look at the staffs at the big name newspapers - the NY Times, Washington Post, etc., etc., they usually didn't go to Big State U. or Affordable Private College. Harvard, Columbia, Northwestern, Berkeley, etc., etc. That's where they went.

If you have those kind of aspirations, you almost have to pay out the nose for your degree.

It sucks. It almost assures that trust-fund babies and people of affluence are the only ones who can rise to that level in our profession (generally speaking). And this is a profession founded on grit and determination and a blue-collar ethic.

This isn't just a problem for us, by the way. Soaring college tuition is a huge problem in this country and affects entry into the elite levels of many, many professions.