Steve,

I know that you said becoming a full time tenured track professor with an online degree is not recommended, but my question is what if I get a PhD online from a school that is not for profit and has a significant brick and mortar campus?  Will they know that my degree was earned online?  Looking through the e-learners listings of online doctoral business degrees, the University of Maryland University College (which includes campus residencies) and Colorado Tech programs caught my eye.  Do you think getting one of these degrees after I get my MBA would allow me to become a full time professor? 

Also, since you work for a university, what can a rookie full time business professor expect to make at a 4 year college/university?

And just a side note: I do not want to get a PhD just to become an adjunct professor since the pay and benefits are not worth the time and money of getting a PhD.

Thanks in advance!

donald11:

I know that you said becoming a full time tenured track professor with an online degree is not recommended, but my question is what if I get a PhD online from a school that is not for profit and has a significant brick and mortar campus?  Will they know that my degree was earned online?

I can't see how they wouldn't.  You don't get into that sort of position without them getting to know you extremely well. 

Looking through the e-learners listings of online doctoral business degrees, the University of Maryland University College (which includes campus residencies) and Colorado Tech programs caught my eye.  Do you think getting one of these degrees after I get my MBA would allow me to become a full time professor?

UMUC is well known for primarily being a distance learning institution.  No one who actually does hiring in higher education will think for a second that someone with their Doctor of Management degree earned it on campus.

Colorado Tech is for-profit, probably something to avoid given prominent biases against that in the sort of old fashioned academia you want to enter.

Baker College has a distance learning DBA.  They may be your best bet, since they're non-profit and have been a campus based institution for a hundred-odd years.  But they're not well known, and when you're interviewing the fact that you're an external student will still almost certainly be apparent.

I'm not saying that you can't get on the tenure track with one of these degrees.  There are always stories of the guy whose doctorate was from Phoenix but ended up as Dean of the Business School or whatever.  However, I think these sorts of options are much more realistic for people who are already a known quantity with that school, e.g., a staff person or adjunct instructor, and who just needs a doctorate to advance.

Also, since you work for a university, what can a rookie full time business professor expect to make at a 4 year college/university?

Last I heard, Assistant Professors were paid relatively poorly at the university where I've been working.  I think they try to start faculty around fifty thousand per year.  That's not my area at all, though, so I'm not sure what I heard was reliable.  People who hold a PhD in Finance or Accounting tend to do best here.

And just a side note: I do not want to get a PhD just to become an adjunct professor since the pay and benefits are not worth the time and money of getting a PhD.

Then, again, I'd urge you to find a program on campus.

-=Steve=-

I'm not Steve but I can offer another suggestion, you could try and become a subject matter expert or industry expert in a particular field, publish a book or create a significant portfolio of documentation on that topic...it can be done but by the time you are where they want to hire you as an SME you're probably already doing alright in whatever industry it is you are an expert in.  Thus just one reason why you hear some colleges complain about finding qualified professors who are willing to start at the bottom and work their way up in areas like accounting, finance, some areas of computer science, etc.