The median salaries for both doctoral engineers and doctoral scientists working in industry were roughly comparable--$71,400 for engineers, and $69,000 for scientists, in 1991.1 In the academic sector, however, there is a striking divergence between the two medians. The median annual salary of all doctoral engineers employed at academic institutions--$67,800--is significantly higher than the median salary for all scientists--$55,200. This $13,000-difference reflects the fact that in recent years many universities had difficulty recruiting engineering faculty and therefore had to offer salaries competitive with those offered by industry. Only 6 to 7 percent of all engineers have doctoral degrees, making them a scarce commodity one much in demand at engineering-intensive research organizations like NASA, as well as on college campuses (Engineering Manpower Commission 1992b)

. Although the median salary for all doctoral engineers is higher in industry than in academia, that is not the case in three engineering specialties--civil, materials science, and nuclear.

Although faculty positions in several fields are currently scarce, demand for college and university professors is expected to increase in the late 1990s and continue to increase beyond the year 2000 because

• college enrollment will be rising (a turnaround from the current decline) as the offspring of the baby boom generation reach college age;

• college professors hired in the 1950s and 1960s will be retiring, creating an unusually large number of vacancies in academia and the need to replace them;(Click here for footnote 26.)

• the annual number of U.S. citizens obtaining doctorates in science has not risen appreciably for the past two decades, and there are no indications it will increase in the foreseeable future (SRS 1993b).

Footnote 24: It is often noted that the difference between Ph.D. median salaries in industry and in academia is actually smaller than the data indicate. That is because many academically employed scientists and engineers have 9 or 10 month contracts; they earn additional income (not included in the data presented in this chapter) from consulting and teaching during the summer.

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Footnote 25: Data collected by the Engineering Workforce Commission show the 1992 median salary for doctoral engineers working in industry to be $70,600. (See appendix table 3-9.)

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Footnote 26: For example, in chemistry departments the number of retiring professors is expected to increase from 250 per year in 1990 to 350 per year by 1995 and then to 450 per year in 2000 (Brennan, Rawls, and Zurer 1992).

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