By Buck Goldstein

The need to explain academic tenure, often characterized as lifelong employment, never seems to go away.

But recently, as American higher education comes under unprecedented attack, friends and colleagues repeatedly ask me to explain why tenure is a cost-efficient mechanism for recruiting, compensating and retaining the university’s most important asset.

For a scholar or a scientist, tenure is the ultimate prize, awarded to a little less than 25% of all college and university professors. For a relatively modest salary, good medical insurance and a comfortable retirement, tenured faculty can pursue new knowledge and engage in great teaching with economic security and intellectual freedom.

The untold story is that tenure is not simply a perk granted to outstanding scholars, but essential to the economic viability of American higher education.

Unpacking the tenure process illustrates its economic benefits. When a university advertises for a tenure-track position, it typically receives hundreds of applications for a position that pays between $60,00 and $120,000 a year depending on the field. The applicants have already devoted between six and 10 years to graduate study and often post-doctoral research, all of which merely gets them qualified to apply for the position. The university incurs no costs to have such an accomplished candidate pool.

Once hired on the tenure track, a professor has roughly six years to “audition,” culminating in the compilation of a dossier outlining their teaching and research accomplishments. That dossier, along with letters of recommendation, is reviewed in detail by members of their department and at-large members of the faculty.

Predictably, this pre-tenure period is extremely productive as early and mid-career professors compete for what is, in their minds, the ultimate prize. Depending on the institution, between 25% and 50% of candidates receive tenure and with it a modest increase in salary. The others move on or transfer to a non-tenure track position, leaving the university with the opportunity to begin the process again with another crop of highly qualified and motivated tenure-track candidates.

From a strict economic perspective, the tenure process is a windfall for the university and for those fortunate to receive the award of lifetime employment it is a dream come true. Once an academic achieves tenure, they put down roots and develop deep relationships and institutional loyalty. As a result, tenured professors, with a few exceptions, do not shop around looking for a better deal.

But economics are only part of the story. Universities are built to last. Of the 85 institutions that existed in 1520 and still exist today, 70 are universities, according to the late Clark Kerr, a legendary leader in higher education.

Tenure is at the heart of this remarkable record of longevity. The system of peer review built into the tenure process insulates tenured professors from the politics of the day. Lifetime employment ensures continuity within the professoriate in an era where university presidents serve for an average of less than five years.

The academic freedom to pursue new knowledge without outside interference has made American universities, by any objective measure, the best in the world.

Nonetheless, tenure can be problematic. The temptation to stick around too long is irresistible to a few professors who think they remain dynamic well into their 70s.

 A very small number use their privileged position to further an agenda unconnected to their role in academia. More concerning, in a few notable cases tenure has been weaponized by both the left and the right to further a political agenda distinct from the academic qualifications of the candidates. No one picks a doctor based on their politics, and the same should go for candidates for tenure.

All of these problems can be addressed with such mechanisms as post-tenure review, mandatory retirement procedures and rigorous processes that involve both peer review and administrative oversight.

The more difficult questions revolve around the implicit compact between the public and American colleges and universities, whereby academic freedom is granted in exchange for service to the public. This compact has been interpreted in many ways – my colleague Holden Thorp and I wrote an entire book about it. But as it applies to tenure, it can be argued that the privilege of lifetime employment carries with it additional responsibilities to the institution and to the public at large.

First, with few exceptions, faculty should teach. Students, their parents and the public expect it.

Unfortunately, academic culture often views an exemption from teaching as an honor, a perk reserved for the most visible members of the faculty and administration.

The best way to change this attitude is for the Chancellor or President to teach at least one class a year. I taught with two Chancellors, both of whom were told by their staff that they didn’t have time to teach. Both ignored the advice and suddenly other high-level administrators decided to teach as well.

Tenured faculty must also champion the importance of job readiness rather than view job preparation as a function akin to campus parking. This means opening the professoriate to non-academics with real-world experience. This is not to suggest that non-academics should enter the tenure track – most are not even interested – but it does suggest that the skills and experiences that non-academics bring to the table are important if students are to be prepared to get a job when they graduate.

Lastly, tenured faculty should understand, whether they like it or not, they represent the university to the public both inside and outside the classroom.

In our highly politicized world, a professor’s words and actions outside the classroom are often magnified and misinterpreted with serious and often unintended consequences. This concern cannot be addressed easily, because professors have the same rights of free speech as other citizens, but the current assault on academic norms requires difficult conversations about how to balance free speech with the need to protect the institutions tenured professors most value.

As the war on academia, science and a college education rages on, it might appear that focusing on the arcane concept of tenure is a diversion from the immediate task of preserving the future of a generation of young academics caught up in the crossfire.

In reality, it is not, because tenure is an essential component of the academic business model. It is also at the heart of the related concepts of academic freedom and faculty governance, principles that define the very idea of a university and attract society’s great minds to what they perceive as a higher calling.

Buck Goldstein is the former entrepreneur-in-residence at UNC Chapel Hill.