UCLA professor says he's homeless due to low pay

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

In a now-viral TikTok video, Dr. Daniel McKeown, a professor at UCLA, claims low pay has left him homeless, shocking many of his followers.

“Hi everyone, my name is Daniel, and I’m an astrophysics professor at UCLA. I’m only being paid $70,000 for this academic year,” McKeown says in the video.


McKeown, listed as a lecturer on UCLA’s website, says he had to move out of his apartment because he could no longer afford the rent.

“Technically, I am homeless. I do not have a place of my own. I’m not on any lease,” he says.

McKeown says his rent was $2,500 a month. According to RentCafe, the average rent is $3,700 in Westwood.

Now, he’s turning to social media in an effort to afford a permanent roof over his head.

When asked why he doesn’t teach elsewhere, McKeown said, “I refuse to stop teaching. Teaching my students is my absolute passion. UCLA is a top university for physics.”

https://ktla.com/news/ucla-professor-says-hes-homeless-due-to-low-pay/

“I’m asking for $100,000 so I can afford my rent, so that I can live in Los Angeles in Westwood, so I can commute to school every day,” McKeown said in an interview with KTLA.

McKeown said he asked the head of his department for a raise but was denied.

[JT45242]

1. Zero sympathy as a former HS physics teacher...

There is no way his passion is TEACHING...if it were he would teach high school, community college, or a small liberal arts college where teaching would be the most important part of his job. (And he would likely be making less money than the 70k)

He wants to be a PROFESSOR at UCLA because he wants to do RESEARCH not teach. A job that prioritize grant writing and procurement above all other tasks. Just below that would be publishing research. Then using graduate students to get his research to move forward. I could continue, but surveys of professors at large research institutions like UCLA generally lists teaching undergraduate students as somewhere between 8 and 12 on the priority list.

If he wants to teach physics, go to a high school...there is a shortage of physics teachers in every state.

BTW, I agree that many college faculty are underpaid...because many are kept only as part time faculty to avoid paying benefits and to keep salaries low. But don't whine about pay at a school that is looking for research not teaching from tenure track professors.

[LisaL]

2. He is a lecturer. So he is only teaching, not doing research.

If he was doing research as a professor, he would be making more $$$.

[Crowman2009]

14. Plus there are plenty of universities in the Midwest where he can easily live on $70k.

And they do research as well.

[3Hotdogs]

16. Correct. I retired in '06, teaching high school history with a B.A. + 30 credits.

My last year's salary was 89k. My pension and S.S. add up to $73.

I realize N.J. teaching salaries are higher than those of most states.

[FBaggins]

18. And it appears to be what he is actually teaching

I looked at a few of his lectures and he is, in fact, teaching HS physics.

Oh... the second semester would probably be AP physics (particularly the one that is for majors in science or engineering), but nothing an experienced HS Physics teacher couldn't handle.

[MichMan]

23. Probably correct after HS passed everyone along to the next grade during covid regardless of learning the material

Incoming college freshmen had to take remedial classes to learn what they should have been taught in HS

[dalton99a]

25. +1. He is teaching AP-level physics for premeds - by reading off PowerPoints and handing out good grades

(verbatim review)
https://www.bruinwalk.com/professors/daniel-frederick-mckeown/all/

Quarter: Spring 2024
Grade: N/A

Personally, I disagree with the reviews below this one. McKeown's an interesting, quirky, and cool guy, but his class is interesting (in a bad way). I normally don't write bruinwalk reviews but felt the need for this one because the professor could make a lot of adjustments to make the class even better. Out of all of the physics classes I've taken, his class was the easiest, yet I managed to do the worst in it, which I think this is due to the way the class is taught and ran. His slides are an absolute mess. Slides are supposed to supplement the textbook, summarize the material, and make learning easier for students. His slides are literally just screenshots of every paragraph in the textbook, and the textbook is relatively mediocre at explaining concepts. Screenshots normally don't bother me but when your powerpoints are over 100 slides long just to explain a concept that can be explained in a few bullet points, I have to reconsider. The lack of effort put into these slides is especially annoying during lecture as he just reads off of them. The textbook will occasionally talk about deriving an equation by "adding equation 32.21 and 32.18" and he will just screenshot that and read it word for word during lecture... How are we supposed to know what equation 32.21 and 32.18 are!? It would really help if he wrote his own notes instead of reading off his screenshots from the textbook as he is not that bad at explaining some things. Now, let's talk discussion. I normally go to every discussion for every, single class I take, but this class managed to discourage me from going to discussion. Discussion does not add anything really to McKeown's class. The TA just retypes homework questions in LaTeX and tells us to work on problems. I could see it as helpful if you're not finished with the homework, but if you are, there is really no point in going. It would be nice if new, original problems were written that were a bit more challenging to students rather than something we could just find by scrolling the homework. That way, we would actually be learning some new applications and skills that could help us in our upper divisions. Lastly, I do not like the tests in this class. Tests seem to just be measuring if we can convert units. Seriously, I think some of his questions are pulled from the textbook as they have so little to do with physics and rely more so on unit conversion and plug and chug (this isn't a high-school chemistry test on dimensional analysis). The exams would be a lot better if they were just in terms of variables. Myself, and a lot of other students, have lost many points due to calculator and unit errors, which is pretty dumb as that doesn't test our ability to understand physics but rather out ability to use a calculator and convert units. Tests are also pretty poorly formatted. I don't know why he writes them the way he does, but everything just looks like its screenshotted from the textbook and pasted into a google doc. For example, sometimes he pastes the figure in the middle of the question and his questions usually either give too much room for work, or not enough. He gives designated space for each question which is nice, but I think it would be easier if he just wrote the question at the top of one page, and gave us space underneath it so that one question takes up one page and we wouldn't have to flip back and forth. It would also really help if he used equation editor (not a joke). McKeown's tests are some of the most poorly formatted/ugly exams I have seen; they hurt to look at. Text is unnecessary big and any values or variables given are not typed into equation editor so they look extremely messy and hard to read (ex. m_electron = 9.109x10^-31kg is something you'll have to get used to dealing with and reading). McKeown often also stresses that the average for the class should be around a B-, and his tests get him there but not in the way they should. Instead of making questions difficult and more physics-oriented, the points you lose seem to come from calculation mistakes and incorrect units. I don't think it makes sense if your class average is reached not because the concepts tested were hard but rather because your students made mistakes because the units given on a test were funky. Advice for future students: take McKeown if you want a fair, easygoing professor, but don't expect to learn the concepts as well as students who take it with other

[FBaggins]

33. And he's doing it off of the school platform

He just decided to move the class online because he can't afford to come to class any longer. During Covid that was the way things had to be... but if I were on campus I would be pretty upset with an in-person class moving online.

And he's just posting lectures to YouTube. I don't see any class interaction. How is he adding any value at all (let alone the $5million that he claims)?

[dalton99a]

41. Sounds like an entitled slacker who wants the prestige of UCLA to impress people

Well, begging for money on GoFundMe should do it

[Sympthsical]

44. Oh my God, was this guy my astronomy professor?

I took a few astronomy courses over the past few years because I'm an amateur astronomer and thought I'd enjoy it. Largely I did.

Except this one professor who sounds remarkably like that review.

I have no idea where the homework or testing questions came from, because they certainly didn't come from our textbook - nor were there any explanations or examples for the kinds of problems we were expected to solve. An astronomical amount (no pun intended) of questions really were just unit conversions.

It's like the guy copy and pasted from somewhere, and you had to guess where that was.

At the end of the day, I was the only person who got an A in the class, and I had to google my way through it. It felt like I more or less self-taught myself the class. A lot of it I understood because I came into the class already knowing it due to previous reading out of personal interest. The rest was google google google. Terrible, terrible, terrible teacher.

But, there are a lot of professors who are like this these days. I recently finished college for a second time, and yeah. I taught myself a lot. Many of my professors not so much.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

47. small world. you don't recall his name?

[Sympthsical]

48. Oh no, it wasn't this guy

I didn't go to UCLA.

Just reading the reviews about how he conducted his classes, it sounded very familiar to some professors I had in recent years.

I don't know if the pandemic broke people or what, but this second tour through college felt very much like, "You're paying to get a piece of paper. Whether or not you learn anything is anyone's guess."

The big exception to this were my medical-related classes. Because you do kind of have to know what's going on there. Except maybe pharmacology. That professor did not care at all if we knew things or not. So . . . good luck to everyone in local care homes!

[Bev54]

27. In Canada the average University professor would make around $100,000 per year

so I don't think his request is out of bounds at all. My niece is a school teacher here and she makes over $100,000.

[MichMan]

28. Given the current exchange rate 70k USD is pretty close to 100k CDN

[Bev54]

29. Yeah but looking at the cost of living in LA which is comparable probably to Toronto and Vancouver

it is low. In those cities they are paid higher and should be, and so should he.

[pattyloutwo]

30. The point is

That the salary doesn’t match the cost of living. I don’t think the solution should be find a different job.

[MichMan]

31. Barbara Lee was promising a $50 per hour minimum wage in her Senate campaign

That would be a little over $100k per year for someone working 40 hours per week.

[FBaggins]

32. It depends on how you define "cost of living"

Most kids right out of college do not live alone in largely luxury areas. They live with one or more friends that also have jobs (or a spouse of course). 70k fits the cost of living just fine if you don't think you're entitled to a middle class lifestyle right out of school.

Split a 3br 1ba with two others. Dump the car payment and insurance/gas/upkeep because you can walk to work/shopping/entertaining. Don't take on a massive amount of student debt (just guessing here)... and you're probably just fine for the 2-4 years that it takes to get that income up to 85k or so. Find that special someone with a similar career and now you've got your own place.

It isn't the lifestyle that he thought he would have after finishing a PhD... but he obviously never had realistic expectations.

[FBaggins]

3. The story doesn't add up

Professors at UCLA make twice that much.

Yes - adjunct lecturers who just got out of school are not well paid. It’s very often a side job. He would not be the first to learn that a PhD does not automatically translate to immediate wealth.

[LisaL]

4. He is a lecturer, not a tenured Professor.

I don't think he is adjunct, but he is not tenured. His job is teaching, but he is not making same $ as tenured professors.

[FBaggins]

6. Right - and yet he refers to himself as a professor

This is hardly a new story. Tons of grad students around the country love being in school and see a PhD as a way to stay on campus and even turn it into a permanent lifestyle. PhD or no PhD... he's barely a year out of college and he thinks that he's "earned" the lifestyle of his own apartment within walking distance of UCLA?

If you watch his recent tiktok videos - he seems to honestly think that he would be making twice this much because he googled what professors in CA make and he just doesn't see the difference.

[LisaL]

21. Lecturers at Universities are often referred to as professors, in a general term.

A professor doesn't have to be tenured or tenure track.

[FBaggins]

24. Referred to by their students - and that's fine

But he explicitly claims over and over that he does the same job as the professors and the school is discriminating against him.

There's a difference between professor, associate professor, assistant professor, adjunct professor, and (all the way at the bottom) lecturer. He literally googled what a professor makes in CA and decided that's what he should make. I look on the school's website and the youngest-looking assistant professors have a decade of experience and have published dozens of times. Yet he thinks they have the same job after one year of teaching the lowest-level physics courses (ones that I took in HS).

I've now seen two videos where he claims to bring in $5million per year on his own efforts (just multiplying full tuition times the number of students he says he teaches).

[iemanja]

26. But there is a big difference in pay. nt

[ProfessorGAC]

38. Se My Screenname

It comes from when the school to which I was adjuncted assigned email addresses.
I was part-time, and the school, not me, gave me that designation.
After I quit doing it, and changed from AOL to Hotmail, I just kept the username.
So, some schools call anyone teaching a professor.

[FBaggins]

39. UCLA also refers to adjuncts as professors

But he isn't even an adjunct. He's a lecturer.

And as I said above - it isn't even an issue if his students call him "professor". For plenty of people the term refers to anyone teaching a college class. His students do owe him a measure of respect and the title reflects that.

The issue is that he thinks the degree and leading three class sections means that he's doing the same job as the people making twice what he is. He's a professor and professors should make "x".

[ProfessorGAC]

40. Fair Points

Everything you say is logical.
With his academic credentials he could be making more money as a HS physics teacher. I looked it up.

[dalton99a]

5. Move back to Irvine and commute

He came from UC Irvine

[FBaggins]

7. He's apparently moved to San Diego

He moved his classes online (apparently saying that it's a required disability accommodation and he'll get the department head fired if he doesn't allow it).

He actually came from Wisconsin... but for someone who presumably has decent math skills... he can't seem to apply them to the real world.

[SunSeeker]

8. Why'd he move to San Diego? Rents are more expensive in San Diego than Westwood.

Makes no sense, unless he's living free with friends or parents.

[FBaggins]

9. I believe he's living with a friend

He refers to himself as "technically homeless"

To me - there's a massive gap between "homeless" and your own (i.e., un-shared) apartment in walking distance of your job at UCLA but owning a car anyway.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

11. oh... he's not going to get tenure at UCLA after being a pain in the ass while a lecturer

He's signalled that he is the kind to sue. That doesn't help with getting tenure, I'm sure.

[LisaL]

19. I don't think he is on tenure track. Lecturers usually are not on tenure track.

NT

[Crowman2009]

15. University of Wisconsin is in the top 10 for Midwestern colleges for physics.

No. 1 is the University of Chicago.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

10. one bedrooms in Irvine starting rent is $2,600 per month. then he'd have a hellacious commute

Irvine to UCLA at rush hour is one of the worst commutes in the nation... so extra cost for gas, wear and tear on car.

[FBaggins]

13. dalton99a's underlying point is still a good one

He can't seem to see options apart from the lifestyle that he believes he deserves.

Westwood/UCLA is a very "walkable" area. Why have a car payment (plus insurance and gas)? $2500 (actually a good deal for the area) is expensive. But most recent college graduates get a 2BR and share it with a friend (or three).

Also - he says that he teaches full time (of course - he also calls himself a professor) - but the published grade 0 salary for a full time lecturer is actually just shy of $80k... so he isn't even really full time. He could find an additional source of income (after watching some of his videos... I'm thinking that's not it).

In short - he could grow up a bit. Most of us weren't making what tenured professors make when we were one year out of school.

[totodeinhere]

37. That is 26,000 per year for rent.

That leaves him 44,000 per year to live on. That translates to about 3,700 per month to live on after rent. What he should do is pay his rent before he pays anything else. At least he would have a roof over his head.

In my case, I live in Nevada which is almost as expensive as California and I live on less than that. I just scrape by but it can be done.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

43. 44,000 less deductions for taxes, insurance, soc sec, benefits.. probably leave him with 25,000

[Dorn]

12. First they came for kindergarden teachers, and I said nothing ...

[milestogo]

17. The rent is so high in Jackson Hole Wyoming

that many school teachers have the same problem. 70K sounds like a lot, but its all relative. He may have debts.

[LisaL]

20. It's definitely not a lot for the area.

I am not surprised he has a problem living on that salary.

[MichMan]

22. McKeown said he is a member of the American Federation of Teachers union and is working with them to find a solution.

[totodeinhere]

34. I'm sorry he is homeless but if I were making 70,000 per year I could find some kind of

housing even in California.

[Vinca]

35. Maybe if he becomes a football coach instead . . .

[flamingdem]

36. Wow, this request is BS

There are plenty of areas where he could find housing and/or a roommate in Los Angeles and as a professor he's not working 9-5p.
Los Angeles has a huge working class community and they are making on on half of what he earns.

He can commute.

It's doable.

[FBaggins]

42. But that's not the life to which he is entitled

He has a doctorate, for goodness sake!



If he stays in the field, it would be interesting to see him again in a decade - though his behavior does not make that likely. One imagines him as an assistant professor with a couple dozen publications to his name. Will he agree that he deserves the same compensation as the recent graduate and that they really do the same job?

[Dem4life1234]

45. Yet coaches are eating good

Tells you how much education is valued in this country.

[republianmushroom]

46. Damn, can't make it on $70,000, well dude , try making it on less than $40,000.

[FBaggins]

49. Update - He has been put on leave

As suspected - his move to an online format (on Youtube rather than the school's platform) was never approved. He speaks of an "accommodation" that his doctor "approved" - but his disability appears to be that he doesn't make enough money (because he clearly says that what he wants to move back to the classroom as soon as he can afford it).

The best line: "I wanted nothing more than to work with the university... where I could get a slight increase in my salary... up to $100,000"

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

50. thanks for update.

[JohnSJ]

51. UCLA is a public institution, and I am not sure salary increases can just be given without going through the UCregents.

[FBaggins]

52. Correct - it's all easily available

For someone with a PhD in a math-heavy discipline - he’s seems remarkably bad at some very basic analysis.

It takes no time at all to find the school’s salary schedule and learn that the “slight” 43% raise he’s demanding is earned by the tenure-track assistant professors in their 7th/8th year.

He was shocked that spreading his salary over the full year rather than the 9 months of the academic year caused his paycheck to decrease substantially. And (essentially showing a lack of vector addition skills from the very HS physics content that he teaches) he speaks of draining his life savings of $15k and not being able to pay on his $180k in student debt. Without realizing that if you graduated with that much debt, you never had “life savings” - you just took on $15k more debt than needed for your degree.

None of which means that the very painful life lessons he’s now forced to learn are entirely his own fault and the UC system is blameless. It just isn’t because they don’t pay enough. The fact that someone can graduate from a decade of their education this clueless itself an indictment of the education they provide.