I’m in the extremely privileged position of having two offers, one in USA and one in Aus. I’m currently TT at a big state R1 in the American south.
I went on the market because tenure for those up was publicly messy this year and didn’t give me a good feeling even though my CV is fine and I’ve been assured I’ll get it.
Option one in USA is in a blue state, a little more desirable for my family than our current location but has drawbacks. Pay is higher and potential pay down the road seems to be quite a bit higher than my current. However, it’s a school with more NIH funding than my current, so it could be hit harder by this administraton’s shenanigans.
Option two is in Australia. I’ve lived there before so have some idea what I’m getting into. Pay is lower in USD terms but so is cost of living. From what I can tell, it would be a ~20% pay cut because summer salary doesn’t seem to be a thing there. But our house has appreciated well so I think we’d be able to put down a decent down payment and downsize our living quarters and be ok. It feels more stable to me but I’m afraid that’s just my emotional reaction because of the fascism here. I’d have to give up my CAREER grant to go. But I have a kindy-aged child, and a place with no guns also feels amazing.
Those who have done academia in both places, what would you do? What questions would you ask? What should I be thinking about?
Comments
Where in Australia makes a huge difference.
Lot of uncertainty in higher education at the moment because of changes to the international student visa rules, particularly among the sandstones who were hit hard by the decreased cap. It has cut a previously relied upon revenue stream and the impacts haven’t been fully felt yet. There’s also some research funding issues due to your current administration but it’s been less than feared so far (in my area at least).
In general it’s pretty stable. There’s less money on the table but also less uncertainty than you’re facing over there right now.
I think your question has two parts though – you’re comparing money with safety and prestige with security in your post. Whichever of those is more important to your own situation is who you should go with (and this isn’t a criticism, you will almost certainly have more scope for a bigger career there and that is a real consideration!).
It depends. Would you be looking at casual work or a fixed term contract? You should be careful about putting too much weight onto a casual contract, the unions and unis are doing stupid things that make it harder to get multiple casual contracts from the same university. If you are relying on fixed term contracts, know that they are horribly competitive, and become much scarcer very quickly as you progress in your career. If you have a continuing contract, well that’s essentially tenure, in which case congratulations, you hit the academic lottery. Adelaide is as nice a place to raise kids as anywhere else in the country.
Make sure you double check your assumptions about cost of living. That doesn’t track with my experience, especially post COVID. Australia doesn’t have tenure and research funding is hard to come by (even though it is in the US now too…). The Australian tertiary sector has been gutted by successive governments, but it may benefit from the US losing attractiveness to international students. All of that being said, if I had a permanent offer at a good university in Australia, even Adelaide which is a little too quiet for me, I’d move back in a heartbeat. You can’t put a price on what general safety, healthcare, and clean air and water feels like.