UCLA Physics Professor Only Making 70K A Year Asks For A Raise & Is Told To Get A Second Job Instead
“I already teach 350 to 400 UCLA students per quarter, yet he wants me to get a second job? That’s his solution.”
ESTUDI M6 / Shutterstock.com Astrophysicist and UCLA lecturing professor Dr. Daniel McKeown was quick to call out his “world-renowned” university employer on TikTok this week after his request for a higher salary was completely disregarded by his supervisor.
Already working full-time, making just over $70K — almost half the average salary in his field — with over 400 students per quarter, McKeown pushed back against his leadership’s “ignorant” response, suggesting it’s representative of the greater failings of UCLA’s physics department and the industry at large.
The UCLA physics professor was told to ‘get a second job’ after asking for a raise from the university.
In a TikTok series, McKeown directly called out his UCLA employer and supervisor for suggesting he “get a second job” to compensate for their “unlivable” salary.
“Does that sound like a viable solution for a top-quality education?" McKeown asked. "UCLA is ranked number 1 in public universities. That’s a disgrace.”
“I don’t earn enough to pay my rent,” he continued. “UCLA is paying physics professors $70K. With somebody with a PhD and this level of education, that's unacceptable.”
Especially considering UCLA’s 2023 public financial reports, which reveal university grant funding that’s grown exponentially in the past few years — even reaching a historic $1.72B last year — it’s impossible to argue that they’re incapable of paying their professors a living wage.
As the foundation of the university’s educational and research-backed successes, professors deserve the basic decency of a living wage, especially while working in one of the most expensive cities in the United States.
Despite teaching upwards of 400 students a quarter, McKeown admitted he still ‘can’t survive’ on his current salary.
Living in Los Angeles, California, where the cost of living is more than double most of the nation, this physics professor is struggling to pay for rent and basic necessities with his $70K salary, let alone build a life for himself. After getting his Ph.D. and struggling through a 10-month job search, his teaching job at UCLA radically shifted from being a great opportunity to an incredible disappointment despite being “one of the best” universities in his field.
Considering the average salary for a university physics professor is well above $100K a year, as McKeown suggested, he feels taken advantage of by his physics department leadership, especially by his supervisor, who completely disregarded his recent request for a raise.
“UCLA thinks it’s okay to steal student’s tuition money,” he argued, “instead of paying professors such as myself a good wage so that we can offer the best and give our students 100%. [My supervisor] told me to get a second job.”
“I’m not going to surrender," he added. "UCLA has the money and the resources to give all [professors] fair pay … I’m not going to stop until I get paid at least $100K.”
Unsurprisingly, McKeown isn’t the first UCLA worker to call out the university's insufficient wages and poor worker protection rights.
In November 2022, UCLA graduate students orchestrated the largest strike in the history of higher education, with 48,000 participating members demanding better worker protections from the university. While their strike ended with a 50% raise to base pay, many of their other demands — such as free speech rights amidst the pro-Palestine protests and equitable professor wages — have not been met.
McKeown argued that the physics industry specifically is ‘failing’ — from misappropriation of funds to poor leadership.
Not only was his supervisor’s advice to get a second job misguided and disappointing, but it was also representative of much larger failings at UCLA and the educational system at large. How can professors truly show up and support their full-time students if they’re balancing multiple jobs to stay afloat? How can professors struggling to financially support themselves help students craft a successful career in the same industry that’s currently failing them?
Outside of providing fair wages for professors, McKeown also argued the physics industry at large is failing to set future students and professors up for success, from crafting new regulatory protections to supporting great research.
“There’s far less advances and discoveries being made because the field is being strangled by the horrible leadership,” he admitted. “Look around at the educational system, and you can see it. It’s so obvious.”
In addition to failing to compensate university professors, McKeown claimed that many universities like UCLA are also struggling to maintain ethical, fair, and equitable physics departments. “A lot of people who get grant money are not even good researchers,” he insisted.
“The system for assigning grant money is completely biased, political, and false. That’s why we have great researchers in universities, like me, getting paid an unlivable wage,” he added. “The newest generation of college students is going to get completely screwed if we don’t do something right now. That’s why I’m not running away from UCLA or resigning.”
With politicized federal grant funding and insufficient private funds for science-backed physics research, many great researchers are failing to find equitable support that allows their careers and educational ventures to thrive. Without unconditional support from their employers and universities, the future of science, research, and students’ success at large remains uncertain.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a News & Entertainment Writer at YourTango who focuses on health and wellness, social policy, and human interest stories.