BACKGROUNDER - No. 3901 - March 24, 2025 - The Professor Racket: How Universities Could Reduce Poor Teaching and Shoddy Research

Oct 15, 2026

Policy background paper arguing that university faculty devote increasing time to research while too much output is low-quality, including grievance studies and findings that are not replicable due to p-hacking and selective methods. It contends that institutions worsen the problem by lowering teaching loads, thereby trading instructional responsibilities for quantity over quality in scholarship. The paper recommends raising teaching loads and redesigning academic requirements and incentives to improve productivity and social benefit.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

Key Takeaways

Junk research and incentives

Teaching load trade-offs

Policy and governance recommendations

BACKGROUNDER No. 3901 | March 24, 2025 cENTEr FOr EDUcaTION POLIcY The Professor Racket: How Universities Could Reduce Poor Teaching and Shoddy Research Jay P. Greene, PhD KEY TAKEAWAYS University professors are conducting junk research—grievance studies or non-replicable studies generated with p-hacking, specification shopping, and other fraud. Despite this low-quality research, universities are facilitating an increasing allocation of professor time to research activity by reducing teaching loads. Universities must raise teaching loads; if professors teach more classes, they will have less time to produce quantity over quality in their research. An academic colleague recently quipped,“I could retire, but who could tell the difference?” As with most jokes, this one has an element of truth. The truth is that the average professor works far less than most employed people do, especially compared to those in well-compensated professional occupations. To compound that problem, too much of what professors spend their time on is unproductive, failing to yield societal benefit or to advance the missions of their universities. Those who govern universities, including their senior leadership, boards of trustees, and public policymakers should restructure the requirements and incentives in academia to improve professors’ productivity. This paper, in its entirety, can be found at [https://report.heritage.org/bg3901](https://report.heritage.org/bg3901) The heritage Foundation | 214 Massachusetts avenue, NE | Washington, Dc 20002 | (202) [546-4400 | heritage.org](546-4400 | heritage.org)[ ](546-4400 | heritage.org)Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of The Heritage Foundation or as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before Congress. The “Overworked” Professor When listening to many professors, they sound like they are among the most overworked people on the planet. Reality rarely matches their rhetoric. Professors often come to campus a few times a week to teach courses, hold office hours, and occasionally attend a committee meeting. For therest of the week, they are nowhere tobe found. They may work at home to produce research, prepare for classes, or grade exams. But judging by the volume and quality of the research that most produce, as well as student accounts of teaching practices,1 it is hard to imagine that these tasks consume the rest of their week. Breaks for spring, summer, Thanksgiving, and winter eliminate almost two-fifths ofthe year from the academic calendar. Professors certainly devote portions of those breaks to research and class preparation, but again, judging by results, the average workload seems light. Overall, it is fair to say that academia is a remarkably cushy field. Other close observers of higher education paint a similar picture of professors not fully using their time productively. As now-retired Northwestern University professor Joseph Epstein put it,“When I began teaching in my mid-30s, an older friend, long resident at the same university, said to me,‘Welcome to the racket.’ What he meant isthat I would begetting a full-time salary for what was essentially a six-month job, and without ever having to put in an eight-hour day.”2 George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan described it even more dramatically:“Tenured professors get good salaries to do about 10% of a real job. 15% tops. All their other responsibilities are, for practical purposes, optional.”3 Of course, these accounts stand in stark contrast to Boise State professor John Ziker’s description, who claimed that academics tend to work 60-hour weeks.4 He based that claim on a survey he administered to 30 colleagues who provided details of everything they did the previous day. Leaving aside whether Ziker’s survey of a few dozen professors at his university is representative of academia more generally, there are serious problems with simply asking p

FAQs

What does the paper identify as “junk research” in universities?

It describes research that is grievance-based or non-replicable, generated through practices such as p-hacking and specification shopping.

How does the paper say universities affect professors’ time use?

It argues that universities enable more professor time to shift toward research by reducing teaching loads, increasing the focus on research volume rather than quality.

What changes does the paper recommend to improve academic productivity?

It calls for raising teaching loads and restructuring requirements and incentives, so governance bodies can improve the productivity and societal benefit of faculty work.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Maya Linwood