> Academia is parallelling the corporate world. A few stars
> get 100K - 200K; some administrators get high salaries, and
> everyone else gets shit.
On/for a List one of the aims of which is promoting fact-based critical analysis, these sorts of statements are much too broad, especially insofar as the sciences (which was an intitiating subject in this thread) are concerned.
Anyway, apart from how to analyze what a college/univeristy administrator is "worth" economically, it may be that, for the most part, the "stars" in the sciences produce less shit than faculty members in other fields. Certainly, although there are some abuses and, unfortunately, some fads (cf., the somewhat now waning craze for "knockouts" among molecular biologists in recent years and, e.g., [and: obvoiusly], not all NIH grant reviewing study sections are as diligent as others), rigorous peer review is comparatively more prevalent and reliable in weeding out the shit from the non-shit in the "hard" sciences than in other academic fields. Re. which:
> I assume the point of a post doc is to get
> some kind of employment despite the fact
> that no jobs are available.
In the sciences, the "point" of a post-doc position is to do good and nteresting science.
This is especially so for post-docs in the neurosciences at instititions like Cal-Tech (the OP's daughter's bf's new affiliation) -- hardly a place a recent Ph.D in some compromised way "settles" for as "some kind of employment" because "no [other] jobs are available" as, to the contrary, such positions are very much sought after and competitive.