As people today are paying an increasing amount of attention to the quality of education, numerous strategies are proposed to improve the status quo. Among all the tactics in discussion, a raise of salaries for university professors stands out as an appealing approach. However, despite the fact that such a raise may serve as a stimulus to teachers, the outcomes will not be as desired as we think.
Admittedly, by spending more money on professors' salaries, universities may provide an incentive to current teachers in terms of their devotion to work and to prospective faculty members. This is true because when teachers in a university earn a decent pay that they are satisfied with, they tend to contribute to their teaching career more willingly. Also, such a practice as raising the current salaries can attract potential professors who have got excellent academic background and are outstanding in their profession.
However, considering that the budget of a university is limited, it is not necessary at all for universities to distribute a large amount of money to paying the stipends of professors for the sake of quality education. To begin with, a majority of university professors are paid very well, sometimes even better than what they deserve. As a matter of fact, the salaries of professors have abundant sources, such as business companies who hire them as advisors and myriads of grants. Besides, teachers are only one part of education; the limited budget can be well planned if other aspects, like the infrastructure on campus and academic resources, are included in discussion. For example, if a university invests a certain amount of money on improving the capacity of the library, which is accessible to all, and on subscribing more electronic databases and journals, students will definitely benefit a lot by taking advantages of the available sources in the library. Thus, their academic performance will be greatly improved when they use the public resources to prepare for classes and to review class contents before examinations. In addition, the quality of education in college is also concerned with how the college is managed. Experts in education have always claimed that a university, either profitable or non-profitable, needs to be well managed for the sake of quality and efficiency. So it is equally important for universities to hire a number of administrators to facilitate the overall teaching progress.
All in all, raising the income of college teachers is not the priority that universities should consider in order to improve the quality of education. Instead, universities can either invest their extra money on making the infrastructure better and increasing the available academic resources, or use the money to hire a group of experts in administrating the whole universities.