[fadmmatt]

I was an entrepreneur (failed twice), and I'm now a professor.

Being a pre-tenure professor is way more terrifying than being an entrepreneur was.

And, depending on the field, between 25% and 75% of your salary as a professor will come from being able to procure external funding.

If you can't convince the funding agencies to pay you, then tenure buys you an office, a teaching load and health care.

It's been terrifying for me because my hit rate is about the same as Matt's. I've had very little luck getting funding for my research.

And, at the last funding panel I served on, the funding rate was down to 5%. My own fund-seeking overhead is now at 60% of my time, and I'm still not getting any.

Either we have too many scientists, or not enough science funding. I don't think the current system is sustainable.

[frossie]

Either we have too many scientists, or not enough science funding.

A little bit of both, to which I would add a third: the way we fund science is... I'm going to charitably say "sub-optimal"

[liedra]

And then there's us lot in non-science disciplines who sit back and think "gosh, lucky scientists, they get all the funding..." :)

[_delirium]

It tends to produce a treadmill, though--- since science funding is available, science profs are expected to get it. In some areas with less funding, it's perfectly normal for professors to have their students TA most of the time; but in most science departments, the prof's expected to pay a substantial proportion of their students from grant money, and it'll look bad if a prof is always "dumping students on the department" by funding them through TAships.

And if you're expected to pay your students, it takes a lot of money! One student, including tuition, stipend, and departmental overhead, costs around $50k, so if your lab is 5 students, you have to bring in $250k a year just to support your grad students. And if you start dipping below about $150k, so are supporting fewer than half your students, people will start grumbling, and it'll look bad for your tenure case. (You can't avoid it by having fewer students, either, because having only 2 students will also look bad for your tenure case.)